1985: Resurgence
by starsandwristrockets
Summary: [Sequel to 1985] "Then she remembered the black, deep dark and endless, and suddenly she did not need to remember anything at all." It is November of 1985 in Hawkins, Indiana and things are starting to feel normal again. But when something, or someone, begins draining Ten of her powers, she reminds everyone that their lives could never be so simple.
1. Coming Up Roses

**A/N: Hello, my loves! This is the sequel to my story '1985' so if you have not read it, this story might be hard to follow. I'd like to say an extra special thank you to everyone who asked about a follow-up story, as well as every single one of my amazingly supportive readers from the first story. You are all so incredible and I can't thank you enough!**

 **I'm so excited to finally to share this with you! We are kicking things off from Steve's POV, but it will be switching off like it did in the first story. I really hope you enjoy reading as much as I did writing. Please be sure to follow and favorite if you do and leave a review letting me know what you think!**

 **DISCLAIMER: I am in no way affiliated with Stranger Things, but if the Duffer Brothers ever decide to hit me up, you'll be the first to know.**

* * *

 _STEVE_ / Coming Up Roses

The future arrived much faster than Steve Harrington had ever anticipated.

Not too long after healing from his wound and getting back to work did Rose, or Ten, take an interest in driving. One afternoon when he decided she had mastered the art of the parking lot, he took her to Joshua Drive, a cul-de-sac not too far from the Henderson's to show her how to drive on a real road. The two were both surprised to recognize one of the homes sitting at the end as the one from the vision of the future.

Feeling oddly attached to the property, Steve snuck in visits to the house whenever he just so happened to pass by. One day, as summer began turning into fall, he made the short detour down the side street on their way into town. "You're obsessed," Rose laughed from the passenger seat.

"And who's fault is that?" he teased.

As he pulled up to a curb he noticed the 'For Sale / Open House' sign stuck in the grass of the front lawn. The reality of the future Rose had brought forth slapped Steve in the face. Although he trusted Rose more than anyone, a small part of him doubted the vision. She had been able to change the future before with Tack, so it was not stupid of him to consider his changing, too. He had looked over to Rose, who was already making her way out of the vehicle. "Are you coming?" she asked.

At first, Steve thought it was too good to be true. He thought it could not be possible for them, but when they actually sat and thought about it, they knew they could make it work. Steve's recent promotion had him making plenty of money working for his dad, and it's benefits covered all the medical expenses from the gunshot. The money he made from babysitting Jane was just a bonus. On top of it all, Joyce Byers was able to land Rose, her 'niece' according to all of the forged documents, a part time job at the Melvad's. It would be a bit of a stretch, but they could make it work if they wanted it badly enough. So that's exactly what they did.

It was late into November of 1985 when they moved in. The house was one story and made of brick, with two bedrooms, one bath, and an open kitchen and living room. There were areas that needed work, and every room would have benefited from a fresh coat of paint. Not to mention, the proximity to Dustin's place meant he would be over _much_ more often. But it was nothing Steve could not handle.

A week later, Steve and Rose had, for the most part, settled in. The idea that a vision of the future was now a memory of his past felt surreal. He smiled to himself as he looked back: Rustling Jane's hair when he knew she would just swat him away, Dustin laughing right on cue, planting a kiss on the top of Rose's head that reminded her of the time they decided it was a good life.

If you had asked seventeen-year-old Steve Harrington where he saw himself after high school, he would have told you somewhere far, far away from Hawkins, Indiana at some college frat party with Nancy Wheeler by his side. If you asked Steve Harrington now what he thought of his life, he would tell you he would not want it any other way. Even as he cleaned the counters of his tiny kitchen while Dustin rummaged through the room in search of snacks.

"Where's the chocolate pudding?" Dustin asked from a squatting position in front of the open fridge.

"You ate the last one yesterday," Steve reminded him. "They'll be here with the pizza soon, anyways."

With a groan, Dustin closed the refrigerator door and plopped himself into a seat at the kitchen table. "Not soon enough."

What started as a small gesture of Joyce wanting to do something nice for Steve and Rose had grown larger than they anticipated. If there was food involved, it meant Dustin would be there. If Joyce was involved, Will and Hopper would be there. If Hopper was there, Jane would be there. If Jane was there, Mike would be there. If Mike, Jane, Dustin, and Will were all there, then Max and Lucas would tag along, too. As people began showing up, the small home felt a bit crowded, and Steve wondered if they had invited the whole town over for pizza.

Rose and Joyce were the last to show, still in their work shirts and carrying five different pizzas. Steve rushed to the door to help, while Dustin rushed to the door to claim one of his own.

"Thank you, Steve," Joyce said as he took the pile of boxes.

The moment Steve set the boxes down on the counter was the moment all the younger boys started digging in. "Jeez, guys. You're like animals!"

Everyone got their share and the room filled with jokes and laughter. It was crazy for Steve to think that, with the exception of Joyce and Will, none of them were actually related, yet a strong sense of family and belonging washed over the crowd. He looked across the room to where Rose chatted with Jane and Max. When she looked up at him and smiled, he knew she felt the same.

"You've come a long way, kid," Hopper told Steve, handing him a beer. "You should be proud of yourself."

"Thanks, chief," he told him as they clinked their bottles together.

"You kids grow up fast," Hop said, looking to Jane as she broke away from her conversation with Rose and Max to talk to Mike. "Jeez, when did I start sounding like my father?"

Steve laughed. "Hey, me too," he joked with a gesture toward Dustin.

"Yeah, you're too young for that shit," Hop sighed. "I think that kid admires you a little too much."

Steve shrugged. Truthfully, he did not mind having the little shithead around. He had always wanted a little brother. Even when he was dating Nancy, Steve tried to befriend Mike, wanting to help set the kid back on the right path, but Wheeler was far too busy pissing and moaning and graffiting the bathrooms at school. "I don't mind having him around," he told Hop. "Maybe I'll start charging him rent soon."

"Yeah," Hop chuckled. "I've got one of those, too. Remind me to send Wheeler an invoice."

As they joked, Steve felt weird knowing people would consider him an adult now. He thought about his parents. His workaholic of a father who was always off on long business trips. His mother who fell out of love with the man a long time ago but stayed with him for his money. Steve did not have a bad relationship with them. It was more like they were just never really around, resulting in a lonely childhood for Steve. It made the thought of growing up to be like them a scary one.

Steve's concern must have read somewhere on his face, and Hop either ignored it or did not notice. Rose, however, made her way over and rest her hand empathetically on his shoulder.

"Hey," he greeted with a half smile.

"Hi," she grinned right back. "I feel like I haven't talked to you all day."

"Tell me about it," Steve smirked, wrapping one arm around her waist.

Hopper cleared his throat. "Well, you kids have fun… I'm going to go see what Joyce is up to."

Rose let out a soft giggle as Hopper wandered off. It made Steve forget his internal monologue and want to pull her in closer, so he did. As the weather got colder, the layers and long sleeves made things much easier for them, and they didn't have to be as careful about what skin was showing and where they connected. Not that Steve had anything to hide, or that Rose did not care to see the memories he kept. It was more of a silent agreement that they both preferred to appreciate the present.

"That looks… interesting," Rose commented, furrowing her brow at the pumpkin flavored beer in Steve's hand.

"This?" he asked, taking a look at the label himself. "It's supposed to be pumpkin, I guess, but it just tastes like regular beer," he shrugged, passing it to her.

She inspected the warm-toned picture on the label again before taking a sip. After taking a moment to form her opinion, her face contorted like she had just eaten something sour. "No. That's _awful._ "

He laughed at her expression as she passed the bottle back. After placing it on the counter behind him, he looped a second arm around her waist, pulling her in even closer. She placed her hands on his shoulders and he dipped his head down, leaning into her, and she tilted her head up toward him.

"Steve!" one of the kids called just as their lips were about to meet.

"I swear, Rose, these kids are going to be the fuckin' death of me," he whispered with a soft chuckle.

As he pulled back, Rose grinned, causing her eyes to light up and her dimples to sink back into her cheeks. Steve found it almost impossible to look away. "Yeah?" he called.

"Where do you keep your - oh, nevermind. I found them!''

Steve lifted his eyes to find Mike Wheeler fishing siccors out of a drawer across the kitchen. He opened his mouth to call after him about what he could possibly need scissors for, but thought better of it. He ended up just sighing to himself as he watched the boy walk away with the sharp object in hand. "I'm just not going to worry about it."

Shaking his head, he returned his gaze back to Rose. "Good idea," she agreed before shifting her weight to her toes, adding just enough height to press her lips against his. When she pulled away, Steve was ready to catch the blood from her nose with the sleeve of his shirt. Laughter erupted from somewhere in the house, but the two were in their own little world together. "It's a good life, Steve," she reminded him.

* * *

When Hopper and Joyce decided to go outside for a cigarette, the kids decided it was the perfect time to present their housewarming present. Jane carried it out of the spare bedroom in two hands; a boxy object wrapped in old newspapers. It was relatively heavy for it's size, and Steve could only imagine what it could be. Knowing these kids, the possibilities were endless. The members of the party sat in living room, bursting at the seams with anticipation, while they waited for Mike to put the scissors back where he had found them.

The moment Mike rejoined the group, taking a seat next to Jane on the floor, Dustin decided he could not handle waiting any longer. "Just open it already!"

"Okay, man, jeez," Steve told the kid before passing the present to Rose sitting next to him.

The party's impatience grew as Rose studied it carefully. "I just rip it?" she asked Steve, looking up to him through her lashes. Often, Steve found himself forgetting that she had not had a normal childhood, and her question served as a reminder to him that she had never opened a present before. His heart panged, knowing she deserved much more than life had given her.

"Yeah, just tear it," he told her.

"The paper doesn't matter," Max assured.

Rose hesitated for another beat before tearing all of the paper off in one fluid motion, revealing a SuperCom radio. Steve looked up at the kids with brows knit together wondering where the the hell got the money for one of these.

"It's my old one," Lucas explained, reading the question written across the older boy's face. "I saved up to buy the newest model, and since we're going to be here a lot, we thought you should have one too."

"Everyone in the party has one," Will added in.

"I'm paladin," Mike elaborated. "Will's cleric, Dustin's bard, Lucas is ranger, El's our mage, Max is the zoomer-"

"We figured you could be the babysitter," Dustin finished, stealing the punch line from his friend.

The kids spent the next twenty minutes explaining all the controls and testing it with Dustin's, until Joyce and Hopper came back inside and announced that it was time to go.

* * *

That evening, Rose fell asleep on the couch with her head in Steve's lap as they watched some boring movie on television. When Steve noticed, he decided to take one of her hands in both of his. A few months back, he had made the discovery that while Rose slept, her subconscious projected her dreams for her, much like how she had once shown his future to him. All Steve had to do was make contact. The dreams were usually odd, and never made much sense, but they were always extremely vivid. It made it all the more interesting for Steve to watch, and although Rose thought he was crazy for finding it fascinating, she did not mind him looking. In fact, she found it helpful. If she woke up screaming from a nightmare, or crying from a dream of Nine, she never had to explain why.

But this time it was neither of those things.

 _She dreamt she was in a white church, built with high marble arches and green stained glass windows. Papa emerged from one of the pews, cradling a swaddled newborn baby in his arms. He walked up to her slowly, and for whatever reason, she felt an overwhelming sense of peace. A sense of knowing Papa had no ill intentions. Gently, Papa placed the beautiful baby into her arms. He stroked the child's cheek with the back of his finger, and as he did something flashed behind the infant's dazzling blue eyes. She looked to Papa, who smiled at her and placed an open hand on her shoulder. "She has your eyes, Ten," he told her. When she looked back down, the baby was gone. When she went to look back to Papa, he was gone, too. The baby cried out in the distance, so she ran in the direction of the sound, leading her to the doors at the back of the church. But no matter how hard she pushed and pulled, the doors never budged and the baby's cries grew louder. Suddenly, the lights in the church began turning off one by one until it was completely dark. Until she was surrounded by nothing but black._

"Steve," Rose mumbled, still half asleep.

Moving his hand to gently squeeze her arm, he whispered, "I'm right here."

She turned to her side and curled into a ball, facing inwards toward Steve and the back of the couch. "My baby," she muttered.

"It's okay, Rose. It was just a dream," he assured her.

"Just a dream," she echoed before drifting back to sleep.


	2. Resurrection

_NINE /_ Resurrection

Resurrection. Or was it just resurgence?

Either way it was hard. Death had been easy, simple, peaceful. At least Nine had _thought_ she was dead. She remembered the faceless monsters of her vision and how they had come to fruition right in front of her eyes. She remembered the rest of the details of her final vision, too, and how Ten was supposed to die that night at the lab but Nine could not let it happen. She had been so desperate to change it. She remembered her sacrifice as she let the monster take her. She remembered the look on her twin's face, a terrified reflection of her own, and Ten's hesitation when she told her to run. She remembered the bright light that grew nearer and nearer as all that was left of her faded away. Then she remembered the black, deep dark and endless, and suddenly she did not need to remember anything at all. Purgatory?

After an amount of time she had no way to keep track of, Nine woke up gasping for breath, surrounded by white. Heaven?

An older man, who was dressed in all white but looked too wearied to be an angel, was at her side immediately, pulling a long tube out of her throat and adjusting her bed, which was surrounded by monitors and complete with leather straps holding her wrists down. Definitely not heaven. So where was she? And who was this not angel?

The man took a small flashlight from the pocket of his lab coat and began shining it in her eyes. He started speaking in a soft tone, but everything felt groggy. Was he talking to her? She could not comprehend his words. After clicking off the light, he reached over and placed two latex-gloved fingers over the pulse point of her neck, and Nine realized she could not feel anything at all. Maybe she really _was_ dead. But then what was this room? And the question still begged: Who was this man?

Nine opened her mouth to ask, but had a hard time making a sounds. Instead she focused in on one syllable, and was just barely able to squeak it out with a weak and raspy voice. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

"Ten?"  
"I'm afraid your sister… is not with us."  
"Gone?"  
"I'm afraid so. You were in a terrible attack, Nine. We all were. You were dead when Dr. Brenner found you-"

The man kept talking, but Nine found it impossible to concentrate on anything other than her twin. Holding back memories and fighting back tears, her eyes clenched shut and her hands balled into fists. She willed herself to return to the vast darkness. But she never did. ' _This is not real,_ ' she thought to herself. But it was. She wanted to scream, but she could barely speak. She wanted to rage, but she could barely move. The man continued on.

"You have been in a coma for a little over a year now. It is November of nineteen eighty-five, you are now twenty years old. You are very lucky to be alive, Nine, and you have your Papa to thank for that."  
"Papa?"  
"I'm afraid he is unable to continue his work with us. However, I am in contact with him, and as soon as you are feeling ready, we will continue you work. In the meantime, you should get some rest."  
"Gone?"  
"Not gone… just not coming back."

She tried to nod, but her head felt heavy and her mind felt sluggish. As if her brain had been removed and her skull had been stuffed with rocks. He gave her hand a gentle pat with his gloved fingers before he left the room. As the door shut behind him, her clouded mind told her that it would be easy to fall back into the same routines. Nine did not know life any other way. But then she remembered Ten was gone, and Papa was not coming back, and knew life would never be easy again.

* * *

Both the best and the worst part about dying and coming back, Nine thought, was that nothing felt real anymore. In fact she hardly _felt_ at all.

A mind and body on autopilot. She slept when she was supposed to and ate when she was told, and it made the doctor happy. But Nine just felt numb. A whole two weeks had come and gone, and reality had still not set in when the doctor, who identified himself as Doctor Owens, took her to a separate room for the first time to continue the training Papa had started.

The room next to her own was empty with the exception of a steel table and two matching chairs. The doctor motioned for her to sit while he setup the proper equipment. As he placed the monitors over her freshly buzzed scalp, he began talking. Unlike Papa who was quiet, Nine was quick to learn that the doctor liked to take his time to explain things, so whenever he opened his mouth, she prepared herself to sit for a little while.

"We will start by getting the strength of your powers back up to where they were before. Then, we will work on expanding them. Your Papa and I think you are an extraordinary young woman, Nine. We would like to see you gain _more_ abilities."  
"More?"  
"More! Your natural clairvoyance is certainly incredible, but I think you are capable of _much_ more, and I would like to see exactly what you are able to do. You see, Nine, part of what your Papa was studying was your connection to your sister. It seems you two _share_ one power between each other, rather than having two similar, but separate, abilities. So now that you are on your own, I think you will find yourself bursting with potential. With a little help from me, I think you will be able to see more than you ever thought possible."  
"The past?"  
"The past, the future, perhaps more! But for now, let's just focus on getting you back to where you were previously. Then, we will grow from there. How does that sound?"

He sat across the steel table from her smiled with an extended hand, but she remained hesitant. Nine did not want Ten's powers. Sure, the ability to see others' memories kept her twin the grounded and reasonable one, but it also cast a permanent sadness in her eyes. It was as if she had never known hope. But, like Doctor Owens had said, her sister was gone and this is what Papa wanted her to do. So, she offered the doctor a small smile back. Meeting him in the middle, she placed her hand in his and was transported.

* * *

At first, Nine's visions were weak. Snippets flashed before her, but she could not hold onto any. She could not see the big picture. More and more every day Nine regained the strength her premonitions had previously possessed, until one day she felt she was back to her full abilities.

That's when Owens decided they would begin work on what he liked to call 'expansion.' He lead her out of her room and down the short hall. They were not in the building she had grown up in, Nine noticed. She wondered exactly where they had moved her, but could not find the words or courage to ask. Her bare feet pat against the cold linoleum as they walked in silence to a room she had never entered before. Inside, it looked just like Nine's. A young blonde girl lay on the hospital bed, hooked up to monitors and blinking at the ceiling. The doctor led Nine to her bedside.

"She is a very sick girl. She is unable to tell us on her own what has made her this way, and I think you are just the right person to help."

If he had asked her to, Nine would be able to look and tell him with confidence if the girl's condition would ever improve, or even how and when she would die, but Nine was not sure she could look into the girl's medical history. The self-doubt must have been written all over her face as the doctor continued.

"You are capable of great things. Seeing the past is one of them."  
"I can't."  
"You can! I _know_ you can. Your Papa knows you can."

Those words struck a chord. Anything Nine ever did was to make her sister safe or Papa proud.

"How?"  
"Focus your mind on nothing but the task at hand. You have to want it, Nine."

Nine nodded her head a little too vigorously, as if she was trying to assure herself that she understood. With a shaky breath, she took the blonde girl's cold hand in her own. She tried to focus her mid on the past, on the girl's illness, and concentrated until her nose bled. But still nothing came of it.

"I can't."  
"You can, Nine. Ask for it by name."

With a small nod she refocused and squeezed her eyes shut. She thought of Papa. How he would look at her with all the pride in the word when she was able to accomplish what he had asked of her. She thought of Ten. How, if Doctor Owens was right, she would be able to absorb whatever was left of her sister, and how badly she wanted her lost twin to become part of herself. Then she focused her mind back on the task at hand, as the doctor instructed, and her heart wanted to see this stranger's past so desperately. Not for the girl, not for the doctor, not even for herself, but for all she had loved and lost.

Suddenly, a flash. For just a brief moment, a split second, there was a vision. A peek of the word through someone else's eyes, rather than observing from above. A flash of another time, another place, another life that was not her own. The past. It slipped away like water between her fingers before she could grasp onto it, before she could see the whole picture. But it was a memory, nonetheless, and she knew she had seen a piece of the past.

When she let go, the doctor was looking down at her, beaming with an expression similar to the one Papa had always given her. Though the challenge had worn her out, Nine wore her small victory all over her face, and she knew that in that moment she did not need words.

"Excellent work. We will try again in the morning."

He lead her back out of the room, this time supporting her exhausted body with his own, as he lead Nine back to her own room. There was a question on her mind that she did not know if she had the courage to ask until it slipped off of her tongue.

"Is she like me?"  
"No… no she is not gifted like you are. But she needs our help, so it's best you get some rest so we can continue your training later."

Nine nodded her agreement. She watched as he left the room and listened as the lock clicked into place behind him. Collapsing onto her bed, Nine spent the next half hour just studying the fair skin of her hands, marveling at the potential they held.

* * *

 **A/N: Everything happens for a reason.**

 **I decided to slightly alter the formatting of Nine's chapter to reflect her state of mind and living. Let me know what you think and I will be back in two days with a new chapter from Steve's POV.**


	3. Flashes

_STEVE_ / Flashes

When Rose woke up from her second nap of the day, she dragged herself to the kitchen in search of water. Although she had just slept, she still looked exhausted, but Steve could not help but think she looked as adorable as ever dressed in nothing but one of his oversized shirts. The same shirt she had felt possessive over since she had borrowed when they first met.

With her glass of water in hand, Rose took a seat at the kitchen table across from where Steve sat. He looked up at her from the flashcards Hop had asked him to write for Jane. "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," he told her, even though it was the middle of the afternoon. The corner of her mouth curved up into a half-smile that did not meet her eyes, and Steve, once again reminded of her abnormal childhood, could tell the princess reference had gone completely over her head. "Are you sure you're feeling okay?"

Rose shrugged. "My head hurts, but not too bad."

"Do you want medicine for it?" asked Steve, who was always trying to make things right. She shook her head in response, but Steve persisted. "Are you hungry? You haven't eaten all day."

Pursing her lips, she sat on the question for a moment, as if she were waiting for her stomach to give her an answer. "No, actually."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive," she replied, shooting Steve a look that said ' _Trust_ _me,_ _I'm fine,'_ but her cheeks were flushed even though the house was on the colder side. Steve was not sold.

Instinctively, Steve reached over and touched Rose's cheek with the back of his hand, like his mom had done for him whenever he fell ill as a kid, trying to see if she felt feverish. He expected her to feel warm where her cheeks had grown red, but instead she felt surprisingly cold. He noticed her eyes focusing in and out, like she was continuously moving in and out of visions. When he pulled his hand away, she let out a shaky and exhausted sigh.

"Rose?"

"It's like I can't hold onto it," she frowned. She reached over the table and grabbed his hand in her cold fingers. Though she maintained contact, she appeared to be slipping between his memories and her present once again. Pulling away, she rest her head on the table, visibly drained. She took a moment to recover before she tried to explain. "It's like... flashes - I can't hold onto them... And I can't push it away, either."

Although Steve was not entirely sure what she meant, he knew it was not good. "Maybe you're getting sick," Steve mumbled, mostly thinking out loud.

"I had the flu once," she mentioned, lifting her head. A small, nostalgic smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "At least Yaya said it was the flu, and I gave it to Alisha... but this doesn't feel like that."

Steve had gotten the flu a few times before, too. He remembered feeling like death, and frowned at the thought of Rose suffering the same way. "There are other kinds of sick," Steve told her. He studied her face hoping an answer would come to him. Unlike his mother, however, Steve did not know everything, and he hated to admit it. "I'm calling Joyce," he announced, standing up from the table and starting toward the phone.

"Why?"

"She always knows what to do."

A tired smile grew across Rose's face, seemingly satisfied with his explanation.

* * *

Joyce arrived relatively quickly, and she had brought Will, as always, in tow.

Rose sat in a ball on the couch as her health continued to deteriorate. Her cheeks remained flushed and she refused to put on pants, complaining that she felt hot, though she remained cold to the touch. She looked worn out, as if something was sucking all the energy out of her. It was a sight that caused Steve's heart to clench. Joyce's too, apparently.

"Rose, sweetheart," she cooed, sitting down on the couch next to her. After taking a moment to study the girl for herself, she looked up to Steve and searched his face for answers.

"She's been asleep for most of the day today. She doesn't want to eat and she says she has a headache… and her powers are weak."

"Hot," Rose mumbled.

"Yeah," Steve nodded. "She says she feels hot, but when you touch her, she's freezing."

Just as Steve had done earlier, Joyce placed the back of her hand on Rose's forehead. They all studied her face as she, once again, went in and out of it. "Flashes," she breathed as Joyce pulled her hand away.

"She says the memories are like flashes and that she can't hold onto them," Steve tried to explain, though his tone made it seem like a question, as he did not fully understand what she had meant himself.

"Flashes?" Will chimed in. "Kinda like when your SuperCom has a weak signal? You can't hear the whole sentence, but you can pick up pieces of what someone is saying here and there. Other than that it's just static."

Rose lifted her tired eyes to meet Will's. She seemed as if she had not noticed he was there before, but a small smile appeared on her face that said she was grateful to have him there. Comforted that Will the Wise understood. "Yes," she told him.

"Has this ever happened to you before?" Joyce asked, still concerned.

Rose sighed and leaned her head back against the back of the couch and closed her eyes, seeming like she was trying to make sense of it all herself. Not even she understood what was going on. "No."

The gears turned in Joyce's head as she thought about what could possibly be wrong. She frowned at the young woman next to her, typically so full of warmth and affection and sincerity. "I'm going to call Hopper," she decided after a moment, running her hand up and down Rose's arm empathetically. "I'll ask him if Jane's ever experienced anything like this, but in the meantime I think you should eat. I know you're not hungry, but you need a little something."

Rose responded with a small nod, which was Joyce's cue to get up and head toward the kitchen, motioning Steve to follow. Will took his mom's place next to Rose and pulled his sketchbook from his backpack, showing the sick girl his most recent drawings to help lighten the mood.

"What do you think it could be?" Steve whispered, asking Joyce but keeping his anxious gaze on Rose. "It all happened so fast… it's like it came out of nowhere."

"I wish I knew," Joyce sighed. "It could be anything really. She could be sick and it's causing her powers to weaken, or her powers may be weakening and it's making her sick."

"What kind of sick?"

"Well, she has symptoms that are common for a lot of things, Steve; cold sweats, fatigue, headache... Whatever it is, it's draining her. It could be something as common as a cold, or depression, or it could be the beginning to something much more serious. I'm hoping Hop can help narrow it down."

"Depression?" Steve asked with a furrowed brow. "You think she's depressed?"

"I mean, it's just a possibility, but it makes sense if you think about it. It's been about a year since she lost her sister and started over in Indianapolis. And now she's starting over _again_ with you. I can't imagine how overwhelming that must be, especially if she never had the chance to fully process it. It's not so crazy to think that the reality of it all might be what's making her sick," Joyce explained. Steve looked back over to Rose, who was studying the details of Will's drawings. "It's just a possibility," Joyce comforted, placing a hand on the young man's shoulder. "Get her some water and some pretzels or crackers or something. I'll call Hopper."

* * *

While Rose forced herself to eat the crackers, she watched with eyes of wonder as Will drew. She had taken charge of the box of crayons, handing him whatever color he called out.

"What's your favorite?" Steve asked Rose from his position on the arm rest next to her. She looked to him, unsure of what he was asking, and he motioned to the big box of colors in her lap. Looking down at all the options, she decided on one, pulling out a pastel blue-violet and holding it up for him to see. 'Periwinkle,' the label read. Silently, she held the box up to him so that he could make his own choice. He pulled out one called 'denim' which was slightly off, but still the closest color in the box to her eyes. She smiled at him softly, making the same connection in her own head.

"I need that, actually," said Will, cutting into their silent conversation as he reached over and exchanged his light pink for Steve's deep blue. He was beginning to add the coloring to his drawing of Jane, Max, and Rose as superheros. 'The Mage, The Zoomer, The Seer,' was scrawled across the bottom of the page.

"Do you draw people often?" Steve asked, genuinely impressed by the kid's artistic abilities.

The boy shrugged. "Yeah, I'll draw the party and different characters from comics, but I don't really get to draw girls too much." Once he was done coloring in Rose's eyes, he held up the sketchbook at arms length. With pursed lips he looked back and forth from his work to his muse. "It's a bit off… is there a navy blue?"

The navy blue was passed to him and Rose watched as Will added depth to the irises. When he asked what color she wanted her outfit to be, she immediately handed him the periwinkle. As she watched Will draw, she began dozing off, fighting to stay awake. She was getting worse by the hour and Steve grew more and more restless.

The doorbell rang, and Joyce was quick to answer it. "That would be Hop," she threw over her shoulder. When she opened the door, there he was, Jane trailing in behind him.

"How is she?" Jane asked. Steve looked over to see Rose had fallen asleep in the short amount of time he was distracted.

"She's not doing too well," Joyce said before turning to Hop. "Have you seen anything like this?"

While Hopper and Joyce ran through a list of possibilities, Jane took a seat next to Will and assessed the drawing. Steve decided to take the sleeping girl to bed, away from the noise so she could rest. He put one hand behind her back, and the other under her knees, carrying her wedding-style to the back of the house. His hand on her bare legs projected her dreams in flashes, as she called them, and Steve could only catch glimpses. Unable to see the whole picture, unable to ' _hold onto_ ' the vision, he finally understood exactly what she meant.

 _The spark of a lighter … an orange glow ... Tack's grin … the sound of Rose's laugh … smoke … rain … the edge of a rooftop … Tack's song … arms spread out wide ... flying … falling …_

He placed her on the bed and she stirred for a bit, seemingly unable to get comfortable. "Steve," she mumbled, still half asleep.

"I'm right here," he assured her. "You can go to sleep."

"It's hot," she complained. She sat up groggily and began peeling her sweaty shirt off of her chilled body, leaving her in nothing but her underwear.

Rose was breathtaking. The light from the window hit her porcelain skin, slick with sweat, in a way that haloed her shape like an angel. It made something inside of him stir, but the way her eyes squeezed shut against her headache and her chest heaved, breathless from her worsening condition, reminded Steve that her looks were the last thing he should be focused on. Shaking the thought out of his head, he turned to grab a clean and lightweight shirt for her.

"Steve," she breathed, reaching after him and grasping onto his forearm. "Wait."

Gently tugging him back toward the bed, she positioned herself so that she was on her knees at the edge of the mattress, nearly eye-level with him as he stood just inches in front of her. Gently, she traced the scar above his eyebrow. The gentleness of her touch kept her in the present without her needing to try.

"Can I try something?" asked Rose, with an expression that looked like she wanted cry but did not have enough energy for it.

Steve swallowed the lump in his throat and mentally kicked himself for where his young mind wandered when she needed him the most. He nodded his head 'yes' as he tried to maintain a strong composure. After searching his eyes for a few moments she nodded back and reached for the hem of his shirt. "Rose-" he started in a strained voice, and mentally kicked himself again.

"Just trust me, Steve," she whispered, her blue eyes worn and pleading. _Those damn eyes._ With a sigh he removed his own shirt, knowing it was the least he could do for her.

Immediately, she she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a close embrace. Her intentions finally connected in Steve's mind, and he circled his arms around her waist, pulling her in and hugging her tightly he could. Though she was sweating, she shivered under his touch.

By making as much contact as she could, she had hoped to see a vision in full. He tried to focus on different memories to show her. He thought about times he had shared with her, about adventures he had with the kids, about recollections of his childhood. She gripped onto him as if he, himself, were the memories that flashed before her. Holding onto him as she tried to hold on to the whole picture. When her nails started digging into his back, he winced but still did not let go.

"I can't do it, Steve," she let out, but her soft voice was muffled against his shoulder. "But it's all I have left of her."

Her sister. Their powers were the one thing she continued to carry with her that belonged to both of them, something they shared. Once Nine was gone, Rose had somehow been able to take on some of the extra abilities. Brenner had even asked about it himself. Whatever was sucking the energy out of her like this made her feel like a piece of her twin was being taken away with it.

"It's okay, Rose. You'll be okay. I promise." he assured, pressing kisses to her her bare shoulder. Steve wanted to believe his own words, but something deep inside of him was not so convinced.


	4. Growing Pains

_NINE /_ Growing Pains

 _She ran through the open clearing, squealing with joy as she chased her border collie. Born on the twelfth of May, they called her June. It was her birthday. Her 'golden' birthday, her brother kept reminding her. "It's getting dark," he warned as the sun threatened to disappear behind the line of trees. "We should start packing up, June."_

 _She frowned at her teenage brother as he lay over on the picnic blanket. His face read 'responsible guardian,' but June knew him better than that. "Five more minutes, Alex," she begged, hoping it would not take much to get him to give in. Not today. Her birthday. Not here. The meadow their mother had always brought them to._

 _The older boy signed. "I just gave you ten," he attempted to argue._

 _She pouted her lip at him, a tried and true tactic, but still he did not budge. With a dramatic roll of her eyes, she turned her attention back to the dog. "Come, Willow," she said as she pat her thigh with her hand and lead the dog back to her brother and the picnic blanket._

 _As she walked, she felt her chest tighten and her heart skip a few beats and she collapsed down on the blanket, out of breath. "Very funny," her brother joked dryly as he got up and began packing items away. But then he noticed her flushed face and heaving chest. Willow, next to her, began barking for his attention. "June?" Kneeling down beside her, he swept the blonde hair out of her face. Then the coughing began. And then she coughed up the slug. And then the blood._

 _Eyes filled with bewilderment, June looked to her brother. Her protector. But he did not have the answers. Not this time. They were a half a mile away from the car they lived in, and Alex was terrified she would not make it. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," he cursed to himself, sweeping her off the ground and making a run for it, abandoning their stuff and hoping Willow would follow._

" _Alex," she barely breathed between coughing fits, her lack of oxygen causing black spots to appear in her vision. She was terrified, too._

" _Stay with me, June," he ordered through clenched teeth. "Stay with me."_

* * *

Nine released the girl's hand, and looked toward her face. Her expression was blank and her breathing slow and steady, but her clear green eyes locked with Nine's as if she were trying to pour more memories into her soul. Nine's heart ached for her, and yearned to ask more questions. So many questions, but she did not know how to put those thoughts and feelings into words. In that moment, only one syllable came to her.

"June."

Nine looked to Doctor Owens next, who beamed at her with pride and amazement. To say she did not feel the same feeling of accomplishment swell in her own chest would be a lie. She had done it. She had seen the past; the memory in its entirety, and she was one step closer to helping the doctor help this girl. June.

* * *

The past was a power that had come slowly to Nine, but after she grabbed hold of it, her abilities grew at a rapid rate. She was readily taking on all of the energy that had been carefully balanced between her and her twin for so many years. The doctor had been right, her powers were greater than she could have ever imagined them to be. With ease, Nine blossomed into her full potential and a sense of wholeness radiated from within. Her heart felt full for the first time.

Just after visions of the past came projection, and she was able to take June's vision and _show_ it to Doctor Owens, rather than trying to describe it. But his efforts did not cease there. The doctor prodded until she was able to see what he referred to as 'the present.' With a focused touch, she could see through someone's eyes and read their thoughts at the current moment.

It was all so new and exciting and overwhelming. She was flooded with a need to tell Ten. It was a feeling that tugged at her heart, pulling her toward the space where her other half should be. An urge to tip-toe across the room to her sister's bed and crawl in like she so often did when the nightmares hit. To pull the sheets up over their heads, lay a hand on her cheek, and watch her tomorrow. To whisper, ' _I see everything, Ten,'_ to her through the darkness. But she could not. Ten was gone, just like Doctor Owens had told her, and that was the only reason she had taken on the extra abilities to begin with. So she whispered the words into her pillow instead, over and over again.

* * *

"I want to try something with you, Nine."  
"What is it?"

He called it the Void. As Doctor Owens sat her down at the steel table in the otherwise empty room she had grown all too familiar with, he slid Nine a picture of a boy she recognized as Alex from June's memory. He explained that she needed to try and find him in the so called Void, and that he would appear as a manifestation that she could not touch or read into, he just needed her to find out what he was up to. He warned that he was not too sure if she would be able to accomplish the task, but Nine was up for the challenge.

Once the radio was set to static and the blindfold was around her eyes, Owens observed and Nine focused.

* * *

The Void.

The inky floor was wet under her bare feet, and she was surrounded by vast darkness. How was she supposed to find anyone here? Specifically, a stranger. Several attempts to call his name ended in failure. But then, she heard a laugh behind her. One Nine knew well.

Chills ran down her spine at the sound. It could not be. Could it? She spun around and saw a girl in the distance. Slowly, Nine made her way over and the details became more clear.

The girl remained quiet, but with the way she looked around the space and changed expressions, it was evident she was in the midst of a conversation with people Nine could not see. What she did see, however, felt haunting. The girl before her had the most familiar face Nine had ever known. A face identical to her own. But at first glance, everything was wrong. Hair that had once been buzzed had grown out dark. Eyes that had once been dull now illuminated. Cheeks soft, lips pink, and body lush.

But then she studied her closer. Though she looked radiant, the darkness around her tired eyes seemed to be a permanent fixture. The way she chewed her lower lip in concentration was all too familiar, a mannerism they both shared. Even something as small as the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest as she breathed was unmistakable. She chuckled again, the same way she always had, and it pulled at Nine's heart, which yearned to reach out and touch her.

So she did. But the instant her fingers were meant to meet Ten's skin, she vanished into mist, leaving Nine alone in the endless black.

* * *

With a heavy heart, she pulled the blindfold from her eyes, but did not allow the jumbled mess of emotions she felt to read on her face. She knew one thing for certain: if Ten was in the void, it meant she was out there somewhere, just how the doctor had explained. And if that were true, it meant he could not find out about what she had seen. He could not know that she was onto his lies. That she suspected his deceit. Not until she figured everything out herself. Owens waited for her on the other side of the table, eyebrows raised expectantly.

"Did you make it?"  
"Yes."  
"Did you see anyone?"  
"No."  
"We will just have to try again in the morning."


	5. Just Black

_STEVE /_ Just Black

Whatever it was that was making Rose sick hit its lowest point and lingered there. For a good few days the illness was unwavering, never getting any worse but never getting any better. Steve grew impatient and could not help but wonder if it would ever let up, but shoved those thoughts into the furthest corners of his mind. Joyce helped as much as she could, coming over after work and taking care of Rose as if she were Will or Jonathan. Hopper had given Steve the number of Doctor Owens, the man from Hawkins Lab who had helped when Will was overtaken by the Shadow Monster, and served as Jane's therapist and pediatrician when needed. Understandably, Rose was wary of the man who had taken over for Brenner, and opted to suffer her way through whatever it was she was experiencing.

Although winter was fast approaching, Rose kept all the windows of the house open while she scuffed around in nothing but a t-shirt and wool socks. Often, Steve would find her shivering, but even then she complained it was too hot. Her migraine was ever-present and her visions remained weak. Her dreams still presented themselves in 'flashes,' but still Steve tried to look on, hoping something would jump out and help him understand what was going on.

And then suddenly there was one nightmare that stood out against any Steve had ever seen. It showed itself in full, unwavering, and it was so incredibly vivid and crisp that it felt as if they were living it themselves, no matter how strange of a dream.

 _She dreamt she was in an all white church, built with high arches of marble and green stained glass windows. Papa emerged from one of the pews. "Come," he instructed. He lead her to large, ornate mirror at the back of the church and she studied herself intently. Full lips pink, almond eyes blue, dark brown hair a stark contrast to her fair complexion._

 _When she reached out to touch the mirror, her reflection did the same. The moment her fingers brushed the glass, the entire church vanished into smoke around her. But her reflection still stood, and so did Papa. They were surrounded by black, the floor was inky and wet under her feet and between her bare toes. Turning her attention back toward the reflection in front of her, she noticed it was different. It was still her, but from a year ago. From a different place. From another lifetime, it felt. It was still her but hair buzzed, lips pale and skin almost translucent. Her expression had hardened, cheekbones sharpened, and collarbones more prominent. Her clothes were different, too, and the old her wore a white hospital gown; spotted with periwinkle polka dots. Their hands still reached for the mirror that was no longer between them, and Ten noted the tattoo on her reflection's wrist. Except, this one was not the flipped version of her own. This one read '009'. The girl before her was not her reflection at all, but rather her twin._

" _Nine?" she breathed, but the girl just stared blankly back at her._

" _She has your eyes, Ten," Papa reminded her, before he vanished, too. Although he disappeared, his words still echoed through whatever void they had found themselves in._

 _She went to reach for her sister but a white light flashed, obscuring her vision, and she found herself grabbing onto nothing. The light grew bigger and brighter and whiter as Papa's words echoed louder and louder around her. The vast white grew hot and she felt the strain behind her eyes. She wondered if this is what death was like._

" _She has your eyes, Ten," Papa's voice repeated for the last time before she could not take it anymore. Covering her ears with her hands, she let a piercing scream rip through her throat. A scream that almost sounded like 'no' or 'Nine.' And then the light finally burst._

 _Everything went black._

The screaming continued into her consciousness as she shot upright in the bed, hands pressed flat against her ears. "Nine! Nine! Nine!"

"Rose," Steve called as he moved to flick on the bedside lamp.

His movement caused her to drop her hands and reach behind her, searching frantically for the source of the voice she knew so well. "Steve," she breathed with a raw throat as she gasped for air. Her hand finally gripped his forearm and all she was able to whimper was, "Nine."

"I'm right here, Rose," he promised, sitting up next to her. "I saw…"

Right before he was about to tell her that she was okay and that it was all just a dream, he took her cheeks in his hands and turned her face to his, but noticed something was truly different. Her expression never fell blank, blood never dripped from her nose, and her eyes widened but never lifted to meet his. Her face was wet with tears but neither of them seemed to notice. "Rose?"

"I can't see," she whispered, and her hand fumbled to find his cheek. She shook her head gently and raised her eyebrows in a look of disbelief. "I can't see at all."

* * *

The one thing everyone could always agree on was how incredible Rose's eyes were. Jane struggled to find the vocabulary to describe them. Will was persistent to finally capture their color and depth in a drawing. Joyce liked to say she never knew blue could be so full of warmth. Steve just wanted to get lost in them.

Dustin once said Rose's eyes were symbolic. They hid the truth of her powers in plain sight; colored impossibly blue for a girl who could see impossible things. Everyone in the room laughed at him, joking that they did not know the boy was so deep. But something inside of Steve knew he was right.

While her eyes remained brilliant and blue, they no longer served any function. Rose had woken up completely blind. She did not look or feel sick anymore, but her gifts and sight were both taken from her in an instant, with no explanation other than that strange dream. It was a medical mystery and while Rose was in shock about the whole situation, Steve found himself upset and angry for her as Brenner's words echoed in his mind.

" _She has your eyes, Ten."_

Although any of the previous symptoms of illness disappeared the moment she woke up sightless, she was just that. Sightless. It left them terrified and in need of answers so Rose finally gave in and let Steve call Doctor Owens. Just as concerned, he came early that morning, before the sun even had the chance to rise or Dustin had the chance to come bother them before school.

"Very interesting," commented Owens from his position squatting in front of where Rose sat on the couch. His expression was flat and gave nothing away. The flashlight he was shining in her eyes had no affect on her, but she jumped a little every time she was touched without warning. Lowering the small pen light, he asked, "What do you see?"

"Just black," she responded simply, staring blankly ahead.

He lifted the light to her eyes again. "What about now?"

"Black."

Clicking off the light, he returned it to the breast pocket of his button-up shirt. "I'm going to take your hands, now. Is that alright?" She nodded and Owens took one of her hands in each of his before repeating the question. "What about now?"

"Black." The look on her face was one of emotional pain, frustration, and disbelief.

"Very interesting," Owens repeated, his expression still unreadable. He stood and made his way over to where he had set his briefcase down on the kitchen table. Pulling out a manila folder, he began flipping through the pages. "I was not able to find of all of your files, Ten, but I was able to get a hold of your medical charts… Let's see here… You were born just a bit smaller and five minutes later than your sister… but for all of the years you spent at Hawkins Lab you were in excellent health. Not a single report of any complaints or illnesses. It's quite impressive, actually… Let's see about your eyes, though… Huh. The last time they checked your eyes was in March of 1984 and they marked your vision as 20/10, which is better than average. Some would say perfect, even."

"20/10?" asked Steve from his spot next to Rose. He was not much of an expert in optometry… or anything, really. But, from what he understood 20/20 vision was considered pretty damn good, and he had assumed there was not any room for improvement.

Owens made his way back over and placed the file on Steve's lap, tapping his finger over a doctor's messy penmanship. '20/10,' it read. Although Steve knew next to nothing about medical terminology, he read every word on the page thoroughly, trying to make sense of something. Anything. When he got nothing, he began flipping through the rest of the file.

The folder itself was slightly worn. '010 - Medical' was written on the tab in black ink next to a red sticker, which Steve assumed was for some sort of color-coding system. The men of Hawkins Lab were certainly sadistic, but they were nothing if not organized about it. He worked his way backwards through the pages. The file's contents consisted of growth charts and clean bills of health, a handful of eye exams and a doctor's messy scrawl about vivid nightmares. At the front he discovered a basic informational page, complete with a picture of Rose with a shaved head and tired eyes, focused not on the camera, but the person behind it. In the picture she was young, somewhere around Dustin and Jane's age, but her expression was worn like an old veteran.

Steve read through that page once, then twice. Trying to absorb every word. For some reason he found himself surprised that the information was so _normal_. Five feet and two inches tall. No known allergies. Born in March of 1965. A smirk grew on his lips. "You're older than me," he told her, though he was not sure why he found the information so amusing.

"Really?" she asked, eyebrows peaking in interest.

"Date of Birth: March 3rd 1965," he read.

Nodding, she repeated the date to herself, as if she were testing out how the words felt in her mouth. "What else does it say?"

Steve shrugged and closed the folder. "Exactly what Owens said. Great health, perfect vision."

Rose let out a frustrated sigh. "So what does that mean?" she asked, but the two men both knew what she really meant was, 'So why the fuck can't I see?'

Steve looked hopefully to Owens for answers, who sighed and carefully thought about his words before he spoke them. "To be honest with you, Ten, I'm not entirely sure how you lost your sight. I can take an educated guess and say perhaps you over-exerted your powers and they need to rest for a while before they come back, but even that is just a hypothesis and would not explain the loss of vision-"

"Over-exerted?" Steve snapped.

"Yes," said Owens. "Much like when Eleven passes out from using a lot of her strength all at once."

He felt anger bubbling in his own chest, knowing that even after all that Rose had been through, she could not catch a break. She had been experimented on, tortured, abused, and treated like a number. The file in his lap was tangible proof and it fueled him. She had lost her twin sister right before her eyes. She had physically run on two bare feet all the way to Indianapolis, where she made friends but lived on the streets. And yet she was still honest and caring and good. She was the most amazing person Steve had ever met, and he knew she did not deserve any of the shit life had handed her, but yet there she sat. Blind. And now her only hope did not have the answers they needed. "But she didn't do anything!"

"Maybe not on purpose," Owens sighed. "You did say you saw the dream in full, Steve… But like I said, it's all just speculation. I would like to monitor you, Ten. To get the most information and to have the most resources available, I could take you to my -"

"No," Rose cut him off. "I'm staying here."

"Alright then," Owens continued. "I understand. If you change your mind, give me a call. If anything at all changes, give me a call. I will be back tomorrow."

* * *

That night Steve read her a book straight through, cover to cover. He lay with his head in her lap and read the words off of the page, but with his thoughts elsewhere the story did not register in his mind. Rose played with his hair and listened to his voice but was not paying close attention, either. Instead she cried silently to herself and chewed her lower lip until it bled and all Steve could do was squeeze her hand tighter.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm so sad for Ten. Thank you all for such great reviews, I'm so glad you're all enjoying where this is going. You guys are the best! xx**


	6. Tunnel Vision

_NINE /_ Tunnel Vision

The rest of the day dragged by slowly but steadily even though Nine's mind was racing. Like tunnel vision, she only had one focus: She had to visit Ten again.

That night, after she ate dinner when she was told to and washed up like she was supposed to and crawled into her sheets at bedtime, Doctor Owens shut off the lights and left her to get some rest. The idea of sleep sounded like a joke to Nine's restless mind, and she acted fast. Without the help of white noise, it took several attempts, but finally she found her way back into the Void.

* * *

"Ten?"

Surrounded by black, her bare feet spun her around in circles on the wet floor. She searched every angle waiting for her sister to appear, but was still a bit surprised the moment she finally did.

Ten was curled up into a ball, fast asleep on top of a bed rather than in it. She was wearing strange clothes again and her shirt was a color Nine had never seen before. At first glance she looked entirely peaceful, but then Nine noticed the goosebumps over her skin and the way her eyebrows peaked together like they did when she was having a bad dream.

Nine had a strong urge to crawl into bed with her, just like she always did whenever Ten had nightmares back when they were younger. But that was before. And she was in the Void now.

But maybe. Just maybe… It would not hurt to try.

With the gentlest of touches, Nine ran the tip of her index finger down the bridge of Ten's nose. Oddly, she did not disappear into smoke. And though Nine could not see her visions or sense Ten's skin under her finger, Ten recoiled in her sleep as if she had actually felt the touch. It was all too strange, but Nine was not about to start questioning it. Dropping her hand, she decided not to push her luck.

She watched as Ten's brows knit together and she started incoherently muttering in her sleep. With that, Nine knew it was only a matter of time before…

Ten shot up in the bed screaming with her hands pressed over her ears. But it was not just that, she was shouting words, too.

"Nine! Nine! Nine!"

Nine's heart shattered in her chest. She could not tell if Ten was calling out to her or screaming because of a nightmare she had about her. Either way it was painful to watch, especially knowing that there was nothing she could do. But in that moment her brain and her heart were not working together, and she acted on nothing but instinct. Reaching out, she tried to place comforting hands on her sister's shoulders, but then the strangest thing happened.

This time on contact, Ten was not the one who disappeared into smoke. Nine was. Suddenly, she was back in her own bed, cheeks wet with tears and nose oozing blood.

"Ten," she sobbed softly as she curled into herself.

That night was the first time she had ever allowed herself to cry, truly cry, for her sister.

* * *

The next morning, the doctor did not come for breakfast on time. When Nine asked him where he had been, he said he had overslept, but Nine could tell he was lying. During her training, she discreetly tried searching the memories of where he had been or what he had been doing, only to find that during all the time he had been training her to see things, he had been training himself to block things from her.

He was hiding something from Nine. Something big. It only fueled her fire.

* * *

The tunnel vision narrowed. She had to find Ten again, and not just in the void. But in order to do that, she had to first escape from wherever Doctor Owens was keeping her.

She spent any and all of her free time trying to come up with a plan. Possible escape routes played out inside of her mind, but nothing ever clicked. Nothing ever felt right, like there was something key element missing in every potential scenario. Nine just could not tell what, until it hit her suddenly.

June. For whatever reason, she felt she could not abandon June, and Nine hated herself for getting so quickly and oddly attached to the sickly girl. Seeing the world through someone else's eyes made Nine finally understand her sister's level of compassion. It warmed her heart and made her want to help June in any way she could, especially when it came to helping her find her brother.

However, Nine's newfound empathy for her fellow captor did not outweigh her apathy toward anyone else, especially Doctor Owens. So, when she lied to him she did not feel bad about it. With both of June's hands in one of her own, she pushed the visions away, but pretended the girl was simply not showing her anything and was asking for the doctor leave the room.

"Nothing."  
"Really?"  
"Yes. Privacy?"  
"Do you really think that would help?"  
"Yes. She says yes."

The doctor took a moment to think about the suggestion. He nodded to himself slowly and turned to leave the room, but not before pointing to the surveillance camera in the corner and reminding the girls that he would be watching.

The door closed behind him and, once again, Nine found herself acting quickly. She took June's hand again and projected an image to her. One that was not just of a single moment from her past, but a kaleidoscope of old memories and quick snapshots.

 _There was not much in Nine and Ten's small white room. Two cots were pushed into opposite corners and a plant was placed in the third. Ten always liked having something to care for, even when Nine reminded her that it would die. Because it always did. And Papa always replaced it over and over again._

 _They had one window. On one side Papa could see in whenever he pleased. On their side, however, the twins just saw a mirror. Often to pass time, they would sit and look at their reflections, trying to find subtle differences between their faces. It was difficult, and felt almost like a game or challenge. One they played over and over again._

 _They would focus in on every little detail, and as they concentrated they would both chew their lip subconsciously. Identically. The first time they noticed, Ten pointed it out. From then on, it was always Nine who was the first to reach over and push down on Ten's lower lip with her finger until she released it from her teeth. And after Ten would smile and return the favor over and over again._

Afterwards, Nine did not even need to say anything. June nodded, understanding the need to find a lost sibling. She took Nine's hand again and showed her the present. ' _I want to help. I need to find someone, too,'_ June thought before showing Nine a vision of her brother, Alex. Nine squeezed June's hand and nodded. She was glad they both understood each other, and even more glad that June was on board to escape with her.

"I'll get you later... Show me something for the doctor."

Once again, June nodded in understanding. Then, she took Nine back to what had made her so sick in the field on her twelfth birthday.

* * *

 _It was cold and dark in the nearly colorless world. A world that looked like her own but was not. An alternate dimension, it seemed. June had no way of keeping track of how long she had been stuck here, and no way of knowing how long she had been hiding from the monster under a table at Benny's old diner. Her brother used to work as a dishwasher here until Benny shot himself and the whole place was shut down. Alex and June did not have a home, not since Mom died, so this was the only place she knew to go. A dark and cold Benny's Diner that looked like the one from her world but was not._

 _All she knew was that she had been there for a while, and that she was starving and tired and did not know how much longer she could go on like this. Especially when she felt like her lungs were slowly being filled with fluid. Or was it the spores in the air that she kept breathing in? Either way she felt like she was drowning from the inside._

 _Just as she was about to give up, having come to terms with her fate, she heard footsteps. But they did not sound like the monster's. No - these were human footsteps. Never in her short life had she felt more relieved. "Alex?" she called, poking her head out from under the table._

 _A man who was not her brother appeared before her in a hazmat suit. He rescued her, and carried her back to her the world that was warm and bright and familiar._

 _Later, after the doctors ran a bunch of tests and determined she was stable for discharge, they had her and her brother sign off saying June could only ever use the doctors of Hawkins Lab for any of her future medical needs._

Nine presented the vision to the doctor. He seemed pleased enough and entirely unsuspecting of the girls' mission. He told Nine that she was done for the day and brought her back to her room.

* * *

If there was one thing Nine knew for sure, it was that she did not know much. She learned from all of the visions she had seen that there was an entire world out there. One she had never experienced. She learned that it was vast and different and scary and beautiful. She did not know much, and she was unable to read the words on the reports Papa had written about her. She could not understand many of the terms the doctor used. She had never seen a dog, or been to a diner, or run in an open field, like June. She had hardly seen anything at all, except for the handful of people she had come in contact with and the white brick walls of her room.

She did not know much, but she was incredibly smart. Smart enough to realize she had to think of a plan before she acted. Smart enough to know she had to wait for just the right moment to make her getaway, no matter how long it would take. Smart enough to understand that if she was going to navigate this new world, that if she had any shot at all at finding Ten, then she needed someone who had seen it before.

She did not know much, but she knew she needed June just as much as June needed her. Together, they would help each other escape. Together, they would be free.

* * *

 **A/N: I'd quickly like to apologize. I, being dumb, did not realize how similar the names 'Jane' and 'June' were until just now, and I have absolutely no idea what I was thinking.**

 **If this is confusing to anyone, please let me know. If so, I may go back through and change June's name to something else, but I'm worried that would end up causing even more confusion than it solves. Please let me know what you think I should do!**

 **As always, thank you for reading, following, and reviewing! You are all seriously the best. xx**


	7. Days Gone By

**A/N: This chapter was one of the first I had originally written for this story, and because of that I kept coming back to add and change things, so it turned out a little longer than I had anticipated... oops! Hope you guys don't mind. Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own** ** _The Little Prince_** **by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.**

* * *

 _STEVE /_ Days Gone By

For Rose, her blindness felt like a prison. Owens continued to stop by every morning to check up, but nothing ever came of it. Every day she was met with new challenges, and for Steve it was hard to watch. He did as much as he could, and some days it was enough, but others not so much.

On Saturday, Rose's first good day, she spent her time on the floor of the living room listening music that Will and Dustin had brought over. They spent hours going over different genres, Dustin pointing out his favorites and Will spewing Jonathan's facts second hand.

Owens had told Steve that when someone loses one of their senses, the others improve to make up for the deficit. Yet he was still surprised when she was able to hear the sound of birds chirping outside over the music. She began scrambling to her feet, and Dustin was quick to help her up before Steve could make his way over from his spot on the couch.

"Dustin," she guessed confidently, gripping his shoulders.

"Yeah, it's me," he confirmed.

Biting her lip in concentration, Rose began mapping his face with the tips of her fingers, but was soon distracted by the pause between tracks, allowing them all to hear the birds. Her head cocked toward the sound and she smiled to herself.

"The window," she told Dustin, who took a second to understand before slowly leading her towards the big window that looked out to the front yard.

"One more step," he instructed as her hands found the ledge of the window sill. She ran her fingers along the white wooden edge, then slowly felt her way for the latch halfway up. Unlocking the window, she worked her way quickly back down to the handle at the bottom, gripping it and pushing the window up and open. The cool air of late autumn filled the room.

Will, still on the floor, turned down the music and nodded as if he were impressed.

Rose smiled at her small victory. Or was it the amplified sound of the birds? Either way she felt for Dustin's arm to make sure he was still right there where she had left him.

"What does it look like?" she asked him in a soft voice.

Dustin's brows pulled together. "The birds or the yard?"

"Everything."

He shot Steve a concerned look, and Steve fired one that said ' _just tell her, shithead,'_ right back.

"Well, um… I can hear the birds, but I can't see them. I guess they're up in one of the trees… uh… God, I dunno… the leaves are gone -"

"The sun's about to set," Will cut in from his spot on the floor. "The sky's the color of periwinkle, just like the crayon. But then it fades into a pale orange, like... like kitchen soap, right before it disappears behind the trees. And Dustin's right, the leaves are gone for the most part. The big tree in your front yard still has a few dead ones still clinging on, but other than that they're just all branches."

Rose smiled longingly as she put the imagery together in her mind, holding tight onto Dustin with one hand and tracing the wood around the window with the other.

"Our bikes are on the lawn. Mine's green. Bright green, with-" Will continued, describing the scene in detail. Rose's smile grew wider, as did Steve's appreciation for Will Byers.

* * *

On Monday, things were not as good. Steve went to work and then to watch Jane, because as much as he would like to be at home over-protecting Rose, he had bills to pay. When he returned home that night, Dustin was already in the kitchen making four sandwiches ("Two for me, one for each of you," the growing boy explained).

Steve tossed his coat and keys down on the kitchen table. "Where's Rose?"

"She's in the bath," Dustin told him as he carefully placed slices of cheese on all of the sandwiches.

Steve knit his brows together. "The bath?"

"Yeah," Dustin chuckled with a strong 'duh' tone to his voice. "You know… to bathe. Says it's easier than showering."

Steve sighed and walked toward the bathroom. "Hey, Rose, I'm home," he called through the door. There was a pause, he got no response. "Rose?" he asked. Another pause.

The silence was strange, and his thoughts immediately jumped to the worst case scenarios. Overcome with a sudden and over-protective need to make sure she was okay, he tried the door handle, which she apparently had not locked, and the door swung open easily.

Rose was sitting up in the tub with her knees drawn down to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs to keep them there. When she lifted her head toward the sound of the door opening, Steve could tell she had been crying. "Rose?" he called softly with a heart that ached at the sight of her.

Her eyes filled with more tears, and she turned her head to rest her forehead on her knees. A number of bruises had formed over her legs and knees and hips from where she hand bumped into things, and her knuckles were white from gripping onto herself so tightly.

His heart felt heavy at the sight of her. Without hesitation, Steve kicked off his shoes and pulled off his socks. Not bothering with the rest of his clothes, he got in the tub behind her and wrapped his arms around her trembling figure. With her head on his chest she sobbed. With her hand on his shoulder, she held on as tightly as she could, as if she would fall apart entirely if it weren't for him holding her together.

"It's gonna be okay," he assured, kissing the top of her head. In that moment, Steve wished for nothing more than to take away all the pain she felt. But he was helpless, and all he could do was pull her closer to his chest. "I'm gonna find a way to make it okay."

"I need you," she weeped.

"I'm right here," he assured.

By the time she finished crying, the water had run cold causing her to shiver. Steve looked up to discover Dustin in the door frame, who tried his best to look stoic but was choking back his own tears. Steve pretended not to notice. Rose and Dustin had grown incredibly close over the past few months, and neither Steve nor Dustin had ever seen anything look more vulnerable than a bruised-up blind girl crying in a bathtub, let alone one they cared about. It pained both of them to see her so broken.

After leaning across Rose and unplugging the drain, Steve looked to Dustin and pointed in the direction of the towel rack on the wall. Without saying a word Dustin understood, though he still hesitated in the door frame for a moment before crossing the threshold into the bathroom. He handed Steve the towel, trying his best to avert his eyes, though Steve did not notice and Rose could not see either way.

Wrapping the towel around her shuddering frame, Steve helped her up and out of the bath. He guided her to the bedroom and kicked the door closed behind him, sitting Rose down on the bed. She curled into herself again, staring off with an empty expression, while Steve pulled off his damp shirt and kicked off his soaked pants. Getting onto the bed next to her, he pulled her down with him. She resumed her balled-up position while lying down and all Steve could do was pull her as close to him as possible.

Day after day, in one way or another, Rose broke right in front of him, and all Steve could do was try and hold the pieces together again. He began hating himself for it.

* * *

Wednesday came and everything seemed fine until Steve woke up in the middle of the night. When he rolled over and went to sling an arm over Rose's waist, he was met with nothing but warm sheets. "Rose?" he called softly. Something clattered in the kitchen and Steve was on his feet in an instant, a fresh shot of adrenaline pumping through him, grabbing the baseball bat spikes in nails from underneath the bed.

He snuck out of the room and into the living area, bat in hand and ready to swing. His eyes adjusted to the darkness of the kitchen, only to be met by Rose feeling her way through the contents of a cabinet with her fingers in search of something. "Rose?" he called again, walking over flicking on the light. Steve shoved his weapon on top of the fridge, out of her reach. "Hey, let me help you."

"I got it," she assured.

"Are you looking for a cup?" he asked once he was at her side.

"I got it," she said much more sternly than before, but she continued to reach blindly through the cupboard.

He knew she craved independence, but her harsh tone caught him off guard. "Rose -" he reached out.

"I got it," she repeated much more softly. Steve pulled her into him, not realizing that when she said she had it for the third time, she actually meant it. Her movement, or rather him moving her, caused a drinking glass to slip from her fingers and fall onto the counter. Luckily, Steve was able to push Rose out of the way before it shattered on the floor by her feet.

"Shit," he cursed, lifting his girl up and sitting her on the opposite counter. "Are you hurt?"

Turning her head to the sound of his voice, she shook her head. "No," she whispered, but her eyes became teary. It brought him back to the conversation they had on a different counter the night they met.

" _You're a pain in the ass, you know that?" Steve asked sarcastically with a playful nudge._

" _Ow!" the cute girl giggled._

" _Oh, come on. That couldn't have hurt."_

" _It did," she told him. The look in her insanely blue eyes was nothing but sincere. "It hurt all of my feelings."_

 _Steve raised an eyebrow, unsure if he found her choice in words was odd or adorable. "_ All _of your feelings?"_

 _Her expression morphed into one that was equal parts bashful and embarrassed. Definitely adorable. Shit. What happened to 'act like you don't care'?_

The cup shattering had not hurt Rose physically, but Steve could tell that the situation had hurt all of her feelings.

"There's glass all over the floor so please don't get down until I tell you to," he instructed. She nodded in understanding and Steve studied her somber expression, taking her cheek in one of his hands. "It's not your fault, Rose. I didn't realize -"

"Steve," she interrupted. "You shouldn't feel like you need to take care of me."

His brows drew together, trying to make sense of the meaning behind her words, but Rose had always been pretty straightforward and somehow that made her statement even more confusing for him. "What?"

A tear rolled down her cheek but she did not bother to wipe it away. With her lower lip between her teeth, she brought her hands up to rest on Steve's chest. "You didn't ask for this, Steve," she tried to explain in a low voice. "And you've just been so good and _patient_ … But I just don't understand how you could still want me. I know I'm not special anymore, and I know I don't deserve you, not even a little bit… I shouldn't be your liability, Steve, so if you want me to go, just tell me, and I would understand -"

"Woah, woah, Rose. You're not my _liability_ ," Her choice of words felt sour in his own mouth.

"I'm _blind_ , Steve. Blind and useless. And I don't know how, or why, or if I'll ever see again -"

"Rose -"

"- and don't tell me it's okay, because it's fucking not... I'm not okay, Steve."

He watched her break all over again, and when he tried to hold on, when he tried to be there for her the only way he knew how, she recoiled and pulled herself further back on the counter. "Rose," he whispered, pleading with her, but she pulled into herself tighter.

He wanted to tell her she was wrong about all of it. That she would always be special and that he would always want her. But he did not know how, and she would not have listened.

"Ten," he tried instead, placing a hand on her elbow.

Ten. The number on her wrist. The name he hated calling her because she was a person, not a science experiment. Ten. It resonated with something inside of her. With the same arm Steve was holding on to, she moved to grip his bicep. Lacing his other arm around her back, the weeping girl allowed herself to be carried back to bed.

Steve woke himself early the next morning, untangling himself from Rose and moving gently to try not to wake her. He swept up the glass they had left in the kitchen, and then swept again to make sure he had not missed anything. Then he moved onto the counters, putting everything back exactly where it belonged and making sure to move the cups down to the lowest shelf. It was not too long before Rose woke up, too, and she followed him around the kitchen in silence, taking her time to map everything out with her hands.

* * *

Not all days were doomed to end in devastation, and Friday proved itself to be promising. All day at work, Steve found himself longing to have Rose curled up next to him as he read from one of Jane's old books. She liked when he read to her, and at first he thought it was a strange request, one he knew he would never hear the end of if Dustin found out. But Steve found it difficult to say no to the girl he had become so enamored with. Over time, Steve secretly grew to love it just as much as she did.

Rose had never learned how to properly read. She could sing the alphabet and sign her pseudonym. She memorized the look of important words and had become pretty damn great at assuming what things were based off of context and pictures on labels, but had always focused more of her learning on keeping up with and understanding verbal conversations. Her friends from Indianapolis, who were all very loud and very talkative, helped her out a lot with that. Because of this, Steve had been reading to her for a while now, long before she lost her sight.

To Rose, it did not matter what Steve read, she just liked his voice and the way he sounded out words he was not familiar with. She told him once that he could be reading the ingredients off the back of shampoo bottles and she would be perfectly happy just to listen. Luckily for Steve, who knew he would look like a complete idiot trying to pronounce any of those chemicals, they had access to books. Currently, they were in the middle of _The Little Prince_ by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

"' _You're beautiful, but you're empty,' he went on. 'One could not die for you,'"_ Steve read in a soft monotone from the worn pages of the old book that afternoon. They sat leaning back against the headboard of the bed, Rose resting her head on his shoulder and tracing lazy patterns over his chest with her index finger. "' _Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you put together, since she's the one I've watered.'"_

He stopped as Rose began giggling softly to herself about a joke she had made in her own head. The sound was contagious and he couldn't help but chuckle along with her. "Sorry," she whispered, even though she had nothing to apologize for.

"What's so funny?" Steve smiled, wanting to be in on the humor.

"He's in love with a _flower_."

"Well, yeah… but it's _his_ flower. The kid watered that shit and everything - said so himself."

With a giggle, Rose shook her head and slid down onto the bed so that she was laying flat on her back rather than reclined against the headboard.

Steve found himself chuckling along with her as he tossed the book to the side and shifted to lay down on his side next to her. He propped his head up on his hand, tossed his other arm over her waist, and took the moment to admire the way she bit her lower lip as she smiled. Steve knew then and there that he would never get enough of just being with her.

After a few moments of silence, Rose wrinkled her nose at him. "I can tell you're looking at me and it's not fair."

"You can tell?" he asked with his eyebrows raised and a smile in his voice.

"I'm not stupid, Steve," she teased. She grinned again, and it was the type of grin that made Steve want to reach out and trace his thumb along the edge of her lower lip like he had so many times before. So he did.

"It's not fair," she repeated so quietly it was almost a whisper. "I need you to say something."

"I'm in love with you," was the only thought on Steve's mind and what slipped out of his mouth in that moment. It was something part of him always known. Something he had kept hidden out of fear of what happened the last time he fell in love, though he figured she had probably felt it in one of his memories of her by now.

But still the idea of telling her he loved her terrified him. ' _We live together,'_ he had tried to reason with himself once before when the words were on the tip of his tongue, but then he reminded himself that Rose had him flustered. That everything they did was always backwards: Buying a house before telling her he loved her, having a full conversation before asking for her name, knowing he was in for something special before he had ever even spoken to her. He had decided not to tell her then, and he had not even meant to tell her now, but upon her request he thought the words out loud and suddenly the feeling he had kept tucked inside was out in the open. He blamed that prince kid and his damn flower.

It even took him half a second to realize what he had just told her out loud for the first time, and the moment he did, Steve leaned in and brushed his lips gently against Rose's before she had the chance to react. If she was going to call him bullshit, then he needed a moment to prepare himself first. But the way Rose smiled against his lips before deepening the kiss reminded him that she was not the girl he had once dated in high school, and he had nothing to be afraid of. She was Rose. His Rose; the one that he had watered.


	8. Through the Trees

**A/N: In regard to June's name, candy95 made a good point: "Honestly i wouldnt worry about it. People in real life tend to have similar names, No reason why it shouldnt happen in fiction :)" So, thank you so much to candy95 (who always leaves lovely reviews), June's name is staying June! And in that spirit, this chapter is from her POV.**

 **Also a thank you to everyone else who has been leaving me reviews, they really do mean the world to me! Once again, this chapter longer than I had intended but I hope you don't mind and enjoy.**

* * *

 _JUNE /_ Through the Trees

A week passed and still the girl with the powers had not come for her like she had promised. In fact, not even Doctor Owens had brought her, and June was starting to get worried. Part of her wanted to ask what had happened to her, and why she had not been around to read her mind or whatever it was that she was able to do. But that was only a small part, and was greatly outweighed by the part of her that did not want to speak to Doctor Owens at all, so she pretended she could not.

June had no way of knowing how long she had been wherever he was keeping them, because she had not bothered to keep track. As long as she was here, hidden away from the world, she was as good as dead. No one was looking for her. No one cared. However, June started counting the days when she found hope. When the girl, Nine as Owens called her, showed her that she had a twin. A sister. A family, and that she needed to find her. She promised to take June along with her.

Doctor Owens was taking care of her, keeping her alive, but she did not trust him. She did not know his exact motives, but she knew he was not good. She had to get out of this place and she had to find her brother, that was certain. But then what?

Alex. That was the first suspicious thing Owens did. He sent her brother away, telling him she needed to be quarantined, but then why was the girl with the shaved head allowed to come in? She had questions, so many questions, and she was not sure she would ever get the answers to all of them. Especially when she did not dare to ask.

For the past week, Owens had been starting her days later than usual, and June killed time by trying to think of reasons why. Her favorite hypothesis was that the old man had joined an early morning yoga class. The rest of her theories ranged from having a broken alarm clock, to him getting a part time job at a coffee shop, to the FBI being on his tail and him having to throw them off.

No matter the reality, he still came. Just not on time. But other than that her routine was pretty regular. Once she washed up, ate, and took her meds, he checked her morning vitals. After that he would do what needed to be done to fix whatever issue she was having that day. Then, he would leave her with some schoolwork, which she never actually did, to presumably go do whatever he needed to do with the the girl he called Nine. Later, after her homework was covered with doodles and she had already resumed her laying-down position, Owens would come back with the girl or lunch, but lately it was the latter.

Until one day, he did not.

Keys rattled outside of her door and in walked the girl called Nine. Alone. She looked out of breath, blue eyes wild, but her expression remained strong and posture stoic. Lifted her hand to reveal Owens' keys, simply instructing, "Come."

It took June a beat to absorb what was happening, but the moment she did she was rushing to rip the monitors off of her chest and tear the blood pressure cuff from her arm. Scrambling to her feet, her legs felt weak but adrenaline kicked in soon enough and they were rushing.

The hallway was short and white and narrow. The tile floor felt cold under June's bare feet, but she hardly noticed. She had never been out here before, and counted only four doors. One was hers, and the other open one she assumed was Nine's. June peeked in to find Owens unconscious on the ground at the foot of a small cot.

"Come, June," the girl instructed again. June turned to see that she had already made it to the stairs at the end of the hall and jogged to catch up with her.

When they reached the door the top of the flight of stairs, Nine fumbled with the keys once again. She began trying each one individually, but June grew impatient. She snatched the keys from her hand the moment she noticed they were all labeled with colorful plastic tabs. Was this girl blind or just stupid?

June flipped through her options: June, 009, Office, P.O. Box, Closet, Files, etc. Quickly she realized, she did not know where she was, or what Owens would label it as. She tried 'Office' with no luck. She found one labeled 'Basement' and furrowed her brow. Could he possibly be keeping them in a _basement_? Her room looked like a hospital, and Nine's had resembled a prison cell, not someone's basement. She tried anyways, and to her surprise the door popped open, allowing the two girls to squeeze their way through the threshold at once. Wasting no time, June locked the door behind her, trapping Doctor Owens in the hospital/prison/basement.

Slumping against the door to catch her breath, she turned to see the girl Owens called Nine looking at their new surroundings with a unreadable expression on her face. Shock? Wonder? Confusion? June could not tell. She took a moment to look around, too, and the last place she expected to find herself was standing in someone's home. Yet, there she was. In a kitchen. One that was kept immaculately clean, but then again there was not much stuff to dirty in the first place. Just kept the essentials. Putting the pieces together in her mind, she realized she was in Owens' house and she felt her stomach drop.

Nothing made sense. Why was he keeping her in his basement? What happened to the lab?

In her mind, she tried to replay all the events that had happened in her life to lead her here: She had never known her father. Mom died when she was eleven, and Alex, who was seventeen, vowed to take care of her. They lived in his car, which they both decided was better than foster care. One night, while Alex was at work, she encountered a monster that took her away to a version of this world that was cold and dark and scary. It made her sick. The doctors who saved her told her she was okay, but that she could only go to them for further treatments. So, when she woke up after getting sick in the field on her twelfth birthday, she had assumed the lab was exactly where she had ended up, until she noticed it was just Doctor Owens. And now she discovered he had built some tiny version of the lab in his basement. There was a big piece missing. She got sick, but how did she get here? Did Alex bring her here? She could not remember, and grew frustrated with the chunk of time that was missing from her mind.

She tried to piece the puzzle together, but was interrupted by Nine. "Come," she said again.

At first June followed, but ultimately ended up being the leader. She slid open the glass back door of the kitchen and was met with so much air that she felt suffocated. And it was not just her. Both girls started coughing and heaving as soon as the fresh oxygen hit their weak lungs, so accustomed to the stale air of Doctor Owens' basement.

They did not let it stop them, and made their way out the door. Though the sky was overcast and the home seemed to be in a secluded area under the cover of many trees, but the day seemed blindingly bright to the two girls.

As soon as their lungs acclimated and they were able to catch their breaths, the two began running toward the edge of the yard and through the woods together. Adrenaline pumping, they did not notice how cold the December air around them was, or how much their bare feet hurt against the sharp rocks and twigs of the forest floor.

They ran and ran and ran, leaving Doctor Owens farther and farther and farther behind. They both had loved ones to find, but somehow they silently agreed that they needed to get as far away from that house, form that basement, as possible.

Physically, both girls were very weak. Neither had much muscle and were both underweight. The food Owens' had fed them was not exactly intended to be nutritious, but rather to sustain life. With scrawny legs, each took their fair share of stumbles, but always got right back up.

"There," Nine pointed suddenly after they had been running for God knows how long. "What is that?"

In the distance, through the trees, there was a busy road, with lanes of cars flying past. June could not help but double-over laughing to herself at the sight. If they followed that road to someplace she knew, someplace she recognized, she could find somewhere to get help. She could find hope. Nine looked to her like she was crazy, even though June knew Nine was the crazy one.

"C-C-Come." June was the one throwing the order this time. Her voice was weak and hoarse from all the time she spent pretending she could not talk to Doctor Owens, but she managed the word as she slowed their pace to a fast walk toward the road.

Apparently Nine thought she could not speak, either, even though she could do that crazy mind-reading psychic thing or whatever it was. "You talk?"

"You r-read minds," June stated simply, trying to remind the girl that her ability to speak was nothing in comparison to supernatural talents.

Nine shrugged it off like her abilities were no big deal. They remained silent just long enough for June to assume the conversation was over, until Nine started asking questions. "Why?"

"Why pretend not to t-t-talk?" she asked, still struggling to get words out. Nine nodded, and it was June's turn to shrug it off. "I-I didn't want to tell Owens anything until he brought my brother back… It d-didn't work, though."

"Alex?"

June nodded. They continued in silence all the way up to the edge of the woods, where Nine almost walked out and into traffic. "Don't!" June hoarsely called, grabbing Nine's arm and pulling her back into the safety of the trees. If June thought she was crazy before, she was certifiably batshit now. She wore a blank expression on her face until June dropped her arm and she came to life again. "It's dangerous. They won't s-stop for you."

Nine nodded, but June could tell she still did not fully understand the concept of cars and streets. She thought of the vision she had shown her before. The one of her and her twin in the white room, looking in the mirror. How they aged together, but they still looked exactly the same. The likelihood of her having never left that place grew more and more in June's mind. But then how did come Nine find herself with Owens? And the question still begged: Why is she called Nine? June wanted to ask, but felt like the genuine question might come off as rude. Almost like asking your aunt how old she is or how her divorce is going.

Instead she kept to herself, and lead them along the road, but keeping a yard or so back, so they remained hidden by the trees.

They walked in silence for a while, taking a much needed break from the running. The adrenaline had worn off and every step was now painful for June. The soles of her feet had been torn up from the rough ground and dirt filled her wounds. Her hands and knees were scraped and bloody from the times that she had tripped and fallen. Her knuckles were white around the tight grip of Owens' keys. Her skin was covered in goosebumps from the cold and a thin layer of sweat from the running. Her hospital gown did not offer much in the way of warmth and she soon found herself shivering. But still she endured. And so did Nine.

She turned to her fellow escapee, whose face was turned up and eyes filled with a childlike wonder. Nine studied the vast expanse of trees above and around her as if her name was twice her age. June's mind could not guess how old this girl was, with the shaved head, boobs, and lack of know-how throwing everything off. With the right hairstyle, she thought Nine could easily pass anywhere between an older-looking thirteen and a young-looking thirty, which was a ridiculously large margin and no help at all. June was about to push that question out of her mind, too, when she remembered that this girl was, in fact, not her aunt. And the more June thought about it, the more it bothered her that Nine, the mind reader, might know everything there is to know about June, while June knew almost nothing about Nine.

"How old are you?" she asked, voice still faint.

Nine's attention snapped back to June, almost as if she had been so caught up in her thoughts about the world around her that she had forgotten someone else was there. "The doctor said twenty."

June nodded. Nine was just a bit older than Alex, and for some inexplicable reason, it put her mind at ease. "I'm twelve… or at least that's the last birthday I remember," she told her, though nothing about her felt as young as her age. She been through too much.

Nine smirked at her. "I know."

Right.

An uncomfortable beat passed between them, and that's when June knew she should have kept her mouth shut. She was happy to have Nine there - she felt oddly attached to her even, and even more pleased that the silences they shared were full of mutual understanding rather than awkwardness. But she just had to go and be nosy and now she felt the pressing need to make conversation with the girl.

"What's your sister's name?" she asked, figuring that angle would also get her more information about Nine herself. They were twins after all.

"Ten."

June felt herself stop in her tracks. She knew she had already classified the girl as batshit crazy, but she had to be messing with her now. "You're kidding."

Nine stopped, too, and looked at June. Her expression was unreadable, as usual, but her blue eyes were full of concern. "No."

"Your names are Nine and Ten?" her weak voice squeaked.

Nine did not say anything, just lifted her arm and turned her wrist to reveal a tattoo that read: 009.

June felt herself frown in confusion, but just as she opened her mouth to ask one of the many questions racing through her mind, she was interrupted.

A car on the road next to them slowed to a stop, and though they remained a yard or so into the woods, the driver had still been able to see them and they had been able to get a good look at the car. At least June had. Nine, on the other hand, started off running deeper into the woods the second the driver pulled over, though June was not entirely sure why.

And June, for whatever reason, felt like she needed to follow Nine. But she could not, remaining frozen in her tracks.

She was shocked at the sight of not just any car, but a police Blazer for the town of Hawkins. The driver of the vehicle began rolling down his window. June was not sure if it was the unwelcome expression on his face, or the way she shouted 'Hey!' at her, or her general lack of human contact ever since her golden birthday, but June felt her heart rate spike and her adrenaline begin pumping again.

"June!" Nine called.

Suddenly the blonde girl was unstuck, off sprinting to catch up with her batshit new friend. It reminded her of what she had been taught about 'fight or flight' responses in health class.

The policeman cursed as June bolted off into the forest, and she looked over her shoulder to find him speeding off in his car.

Nine ran fast, and June trailed behind, trying her best to catch up. Though her legs were longer than the older girl's, she was weak. Her feet were hurting and she could not feel her toes and her body was tired and her lungs were raw as they struggled to keep up, too. When she fell, she caught herself on her hands, but her arms struggled to hold her weight. Her heart felt sore and her chest tight and she did not know if she could stand up again.

"N-Nine!" she called as loud as her tired voice would allow. "Ni -" she went to call again but was cut off by her own coughing.

"Are you okay?" Nine asked as she spun around and jogged back over to the girl on the ground. June answered with even more coughing, and Nine crouched down next to her. "June?"

"I'm so stupid…" June managed before she began coughing blood up into the dirt. "I… I should've known I wouldn't make it."

The blood kept coming and June kept fighting the burning sensation in her lungs.

Nine shook her head, but June was preoccupied. "You will," she assured before taking June's hand in both of her to do her clairvoyance thing. A few moments later, June's vision shifted from staring at the dirt on the ground to watching a piece of her life she had yet to live unfold in front of her.

 _June sat on front porch steps on spring day. She wore white shorts to show off her long, tanned legs and t-shirt to match the green of her eyes. She ate strawberries out of the carton while basking in the warmth of the sun and the cool of the breeze._

 _The front door opened behind her, and Nine came out to sit on the steps next to her. "Happy birthday," she wished the new teenager with a smile, stealing a strawberry. June beamed right back at her._

"You will," Nine assured again.

More than anything, June wanted to believe what she had just seen. But the more she coughed and the more blood came up with it, the less she was convinced. Even then, something inside of her trusted Nine and the vision she had shown, and she tried her best to hold tight onto that part of herself.

Nine scrambled to her feet and managed, somehow, to begin carrying June piggy-back through the trees. "Just stay with me," Nine said, and it caused her brother's similar words to echo through her mind.

" _Stay with me, June," he ordered through clenched teeth. "Stay with me."_

More blood was coughed up onto Nine's shoulder, and June looked up to the branches that the older girl had been so captivated by earlier. It had been so long since she had seen something so simple as a tree. Though the black spots began appearing in the edges of her vision, she felt as if she was she was truly seeing and acknowledging the the world around her for the first time. Suddenly, June understood Nine's childlike wonder. She felt it, too.

She was sick, but she was free. Crimson blood coated her chin and teeth, but she smiled wide as the cold breeze swayed the bare limbs of the sturdy trees. She began fading fast from her lack of oxygen, but she was surrounded by it. She should have known this would happen, but it was a choice she had made all on her own. And in that choice she had found her peace.


	9. Search Party

**A/N: Hi, everyone! I'm so glad you all loved the last two chapters, I am definitely very proud of them myself. Thank you for the lovely reviews, they put a smile on my face every time!**

 **This chapter was much harder to write for me because I decided to tackle Dustin's POV. I absolutely adore his character, however, Dustin and I are two** _ **very**_ **different people and it proved itself to be challenging. I apologize if I did not capture him as accurately as a could have, but if you have any constructive criticism that you think I could benefit from, I would love to hear it.**

* * *

 _DUSTIN /_ Search Party

On a Saturday in early December the party spent their weekend as they did any other: On the floor of Steve Harrington's living room fighting over what movie they should rewatch for the hundredth time, for no reason other than this was Hawkins, and their paladin had been to busy sucking face with his girlfriend to write any new D&D campaigns, so there was nothing else to do.

Except this time the fight was lasting a lot longer than usual because there was no El or Max or Rose around to suggest something entirely different for all the boys to scoff at before unanimously agreeing to. Instead, while Lucas and Dustin were pushing Back to the Future, Mike and Will were fighting for The Empire Strikes Back, and Steve was claiming he "couldn't care less about that nerd shit," the girls were all off at the Byers'.

Since Nancy was home from college for the weekend and Rose had not really left the house since she went blind, Joyce had suggested that they all get together for a 'girl's day.' Dustin did not know what the hell that meant, but he could only imagine how uncomfortable the idea of Nancy and Rose hanging out was for Steve. The thought typically would have amused Dustin, but for now he was just frustrated with his bickering friends.

"Ugh," Dustin groaned when he was officially fed up. "Just put on The Empire Strikes Back, it doesn't even matter."

"Traitor," Lucas muttered.

Will frowned. "If you really want, Lucas, we can watch Back to the Future. Dustin's right, it really doesn't matter."

"Uuugh," Dustin groaned again before pulling himself to his feet. "You're all hopeless. I need snacks."

"Oh, grab me some Pringles!" Lucas called after him.

"Yeah, yeah," Dustin sighed as he made his way into the kitchen and over to Steve.

The older boy stood with the contents of Rose's old medical file spread across the counter. He reviewed each page over and over as if new information would suddenly jump out at him. It seemed like Steve viewed it as a puzzle to be solved rather than what it actually was: a boring medical chart for what seemed to be the healthiest girl in America. Dustin wanted to tell him that his efforts were pointless, but having never seen Steve study anything so hard in his life, Dustin decided to spare him.

"Are you still trying to get something out of all this?" Dustin asked, joining Steve and picking up a graph that illustrated Rose's height over the years.

Steve sighed dejectedly, but never took his eyes from the paper in front of him. "I don't know what any of this shit means."

"Well, you're not exactly a doctor," Dustin reminded him.

Steve did not respond, he just began shuffling through more of the papers. One in particular caught Dustin's eye and he claimed it. It was a page of basic medical information that was just as boring as the rest of the pile, but it was the wallet-sized picture paperclipped to the corner that caught his eye.

It was Rose, who could have easily looked like a normal high schooler if it were not for the shaved head and familiar expression reminding Dustin of the night they found El in the woods. In the picture, she could not have been much older than Dustin was now, and he found it weird to think about, but it's the path his train of thought started down, anyways.

If Rose really had been fourteen in the picture, then it would have been taken when Dustin was eight. At that point, he had not even moved to Hawkins yet, and would not for another two years. But while he was off being blissfully oblivious and doing whatever it was second graders did, Rose and El and probably many others were trapped in that lab. Robbed of the simple childhood experiences he had been offered. The picture in his hands made it feel surreal. Not that he had ever doubted anything Rose or El had told him, but having proof from the inside caused the reality to settle in deeper than it ever had before. Dustin felt his stomach twist.

"It's weird, right?" Steve asked when he noticed Dustin staring at the picture.

For whatever reason Dustin could not take his eyes off of the photo, and even felt his gaze narrow at it. Her young face felt haunting, and he decided to cope with it the only way he knew how. "Since she's a twin, do you think there's a possibility that they took a picture of one of them and used it in both of their files?" he joked.

Steve smirked at the comment but once again did not reply. The guy had himself so stressed about Rose that he had not been in a joking mood too often lately. Instead he began piling the papers back into the manila folder.

"Do you miss her yet?" Dustin teased, referring to Rose having been out of the house for an entire hour now, as he handed over the page.

"Not as much as you do," Steve fired back, finally feeding into Dustin's banter. It had become a running joke that Dustin always had crushes on whoever Steve was dating, though he had never actually admitted to any of them. The fact that both Nancy and Rose had each told him something along the lines of him being 'cute' and the type of guy that 'any girl would be lucky to have' only gave Dustin's friends more ammunition against him.

Dustin could not even say he had a crush on Rose, like everyone assumed he did. Sure, he thought she was pretty, but knew most guys would. Other than that she was a really great friend and a fun person to be around, and hanging out with her and Steve was a much needed break from all of the everyday stress and drama that comes with being in high school. More than anything, he and Rose had formed a strong sibling-like bond, but Dustin had learned better than to try and reason with his friends and found it easier to play along. "It's not my fault your girlfriend likes me better than you."

"She did say you're cute…"

Ugh. There's that word again. _Cute._ It's what you call a puppy or a two-year-old, and Dustin was neither.

He was brainstorming his next jab when Lucas called from the living room. "Dustin! The Pringles!"

"Okay, man. Jeez!" he called back, quickly grabbing the chips and a few other snacks from the cupboard.

He made his way over to the living room, dropping the junk food on the floor between his friends. Steve trailed behind, and all five boys all jumped in surprise when a familiar but unexpected voice rang through the room.

" _Hello?"_ a man called through all of their Supercoms. " _Mike? Will? Anyone?"_

They all looked to each other, confused. "Is that Hopper?" Mike asked upon recognising the voice.

"Only one way to find out," said Dustin, reaching over for his walkie talkie. "Dustin copies," he said into the device, hearing his own voice echoed out through the other boys' raidos.

" _Dustin! It's Hopper, are you with Harrington?"_

It was unusual for Hop to contact them over the radio. He only ever did it when he was working in the Blazer and would not be near a phone anytime soon. It even more unusual for him to request anyone other than Mike, and even that was just to check up on El. Though the request puzzled him, Dustin wasted no time turning to Steve and holding out the Supercom. "It's for you."

"Why?" Steve asked rhetorically as he snatched the walkie talkie out of Dustin's hand. He pushed the button and spoke into the radio. "This is Steve."

The whole room waited in anticipation for a beat before Hop's tinny voice filled the room again. "Steve, _we've got a... uh, situation. I need you to bring the boys and meet me at the corner of Mirkwood and Franklin."_ The stress was evident in his voice, even over the radio.

"Why?" Steve asked again, this time into the Supercom.

" _Just hurry, kid. When I see you, I'll explain."_

* * *

The drive to the corner of Mirkwood and Franklin was a silent one, and Dustin knew he could cut the tension in the car with a knife. Everyone was on edge, and the only clue Hopper had given was in his sense of urgency. With what they have all been through, the possibilities were endless.

When they got to their destination, they saw Hop's police Blazer parked on a patch of grass near the edge of the woods. Steve pulled up and parked next to him while Hop jumped out of his car.

"Is everyone okay?" Steve asked immediately as he and the kids all piled out of his own vehicle.

"Everyone's fine," Hop assured as he unfolded the map in his hands, spreading it over the hood of the Blazer.

"So what's going on?" Dustin asked, having had enough of the suspense.

Hopper motioned for them all to gather around and pulled a pen from the pocket of his uniform. "I saw two girls walking -"

"Girls?" Dustin interrupted. It was already ridiculous, he saw girls walking every day.

The chief gave a long sigh and rubbed his forehead. "Let me finish, and then you can ask questions."

"Sorry," Dustin mumbled, looking down to his feet and kicking a rock on the ground.

"I saw two girls walking in the woods here," Hopper continued, indicating where with an 'X' on the map. "I couldn't get a good look at them, but they were both in hospital gowns. One was young but tall and blonde, the other had a shaved head and darker looking hair."

Hopper continued by drawing a circle around an expanse of trees, overlapping the first mark, along with another 'X' along the edge of those woods, not too far from the first. "We're here, at this second X, but they could be anywhere in these woods."

"What if they're not?" Dustin thought out loud.

"Then we'll figure it out," the chief huffed through clenched teeth.

"Do you think it's another test subject?" Mike asked.

"I thought the D.O.E. shut down," said Lucas.

Hopper chose to ignore Lucas' comment. It did not matter that the lab shut down a year ago. This was Hawkins, and they had all learned the hard way that anything could happen, especially when it came to girls with buzzcuts. He answered Mike instead. "Could be. That's why we need to find them before anyone else does."

They all nodded in agreement, except for Will who, thanks to interdimensional monsters, had always been left out of these kinds of adventures in the past.

Steve was the first to speak after a brief moment of silence. "So what's the plan, Chief?"

* * *

The search party had split up into two groups. Hopper, Mike, and Will would drive around the perimeter of the wooded area to see if they had begun walking along the side of the road again. Meanwhile, Dustin found himself trailing behind Steve with Lucas while they trekked through the trees, doing all the hard work. Not that he minded too much, he was the 'Compass Genius' after all.

Dustin looked over to Lucas just in time to see him pull a camouflage bandana from the pocket of his winter jacket. "Dude, why do you have that with you?"

"In case of an emergency," Lucas shrugged, wrapping it around his forehead and knotting it tightly in the back.

Dustin could not help but scoff. "Of all the things to carry in case of an emergency, you chose _that_? What about your slingshot?"

"The wrist rocket isn't exactly pocket-sized, genius."

Dustin rolled his eyes at his friend, but deep down he knew Lucas' bandana was all too fitting, and a search through the woods near Mirkwood would not be the same without it.

"Besides," Lucas continued. "We're not fighting a Demogorgon today, we're finding two lost girls in the woods. The wrist rocket would just scare them off."

Just when Dustin was about to make some sort of comment about how Lucas' face would scare them off plenty, he realized something. If Mike was right and at least one of these girls were test subjects, then they had to be numbered. Right?

"Lucas? What number do you think we're looking for?"

Lucas furrowed his brow, unable to follow Dustin's train of thought. "What?"

"If they really are test subjects, which numbers do you think they're gonna be?" Dustin clarified.

Lucas just shrugged. "I hadn't thought about it."

"Well, think about it! We know Ten and Eleven…"

"Eight's in Chicago."

"And it can't be Nine because she's dead -"

"So you could just pick a number between one and seven, really."

Steve, a few paces ahead of them, had stayed silent and focused for the most part, and was doing his best to actually search for these girls, unlike the eternally bantering boys behind him. Suddenly, he stopped short in his tracks, but Lucas and Dustin were so preoccupied they nearly ran into him.

"I thought I heard something," he explained, pausing for a moment to listen before continuing on his path through the woods. "Did you dipshits ever consider twelve?"

The dipshits had not, in fact, considered the possibility of there being any numbers past eleven. The more Dustin thought about it, the more he felt his jaw drop at the idea. Steve grew a smug look on his face at the boys' stunned expressions.

After a drawn out beat, Lucas was the first to speak. "How many do you think there are?"

Steve scoffed. "How the hell would I know?"

"Do you think they're both test subjects, or just the one with the shaved head?" Dustin asked.

"I'd guess both," Lucas answered. "If you think about it, they kept Eight and Eleven together for a while, and Nine and Ten together their whole lives. This could be like Seven and Twelve, or Twelve and Thirteen, or Six and Seven. They could've been kept together and escaped together. Besides, who else would the blonde girl be?"

"Where would they be keeping them together if Hawkins Lab shut down?" Dustin argued.

Lucas threw his hands up in frustration. "I don't know! Do you have a better theory?"

"Guys," Steve interrupted, but was promptly ignored.

"No, but when we find them, I'll be sure to ask!"

"Guys," Steve repeated much more sternly.

"If they're anything like El, they won't be telling you much."

" _Guys_!" Steve shouted over them, stopping once again. The boys shut up, and Steve tilted his head to listen to a distant yet certain sound. Leaves rustling. Then the crack of a branch in the distance. "Did you hear that?"


	10. June, June, June

_NINE_ / June, June, June

It is amazing what the body can do when you test it. Nine knew that firsthand. That being said, her physical limits have never truly been challenged before. Not like this.

She ran as fast as her legs could carry her through the forest, relying solely on instinct and will to keep her wounded feet moving. With her, she carried an unconscious girl on her back, and although the June was eight years younger, she was taller and weighed just as much.

Nine began to panic. She had no clue about the world she had found herself in and no idea where she was going, but she had trusted June to get them there. Now, they both had to rely on Nine's scrawny legs and nonexistent sense of direction. Their lives depended on it.

There was no way of telling how long they had been running. Minutes? Hours? Days? How was Nine supposed to know? And she was cold. So cold, and exhaustion ran deep into her bones. Just as she thought of giving up, she noticed June's slow and strained breathing in her ear, reminding Nine that she had to keep going. She had to find help. She had to save her.

Nine knew it was all her fault that this was happening to June, and the thought echoed in her mind until it was the only thing she could hear. Not the gentle breeze or the chrunch of leaves under her feet or the voice of someone calling after her.

Stumbling upon a tree she thought she recognized, she worried she had been running in circles. Nine had died once before, but they were both about to die out here together if she did not figure something out. Starting with poor June. But it was then, as she came across the familiar tree, that she slowed her pace to a walk and turned into the world around her, almost hoping it would shout an answer at her.

And it did.

"Hey, wait up!" she heard someone call in the distance behind her, accompanied by several sets of running footsteps. "Let us help you!"

Help. She stopped in her tracks and gently moved June off of her aching back and onto the ground. Her chin and neck were covered in the blood she had coughed up and her face was smeared with dirt. She just hoped whoever was after her would be able to help save the young girl.

"Is she dead?"  
"Dustin!"  
"It's a serious question, Lucas."

Nine could not speak. She realized she did not know and the guilt rang over in her mind again and again. Dead. Dead. Dead? June was supposed to live. She had seen it! Nine knew the future could change, but not now. Not today. She willed it not to happen.

She cradled June's head to her chest, wishing for her to feel just how sorry she was. Lifting the hem of her own hospital gown, Nine tried to clean the blood off of June's face but it mostly just smeared around. Why? Why? Why?

The footsteps silenced as they caught up to her. At first, none of the people said anything, and neither did Nine. She just kept feeling crushed under the weight of guilt as she tried to soak up the blood on June's face. Not once did she look up to her whoever was chasing her until one of them crouched in her peripheral and muttered to himself.

"Holy shit."

Looking up, she expected to find him staring down at the mess of blood and dirt and sweat painted over June's unconscious face, but he was not. He was studying Nine with wide eyes of wild disbelief, a look she had grown to associate with any of Papa's new employees. A similar reaction was drawn from both of the boys he was with, and it immediately put her on edge.

The boy who crouched next to her, who appeared to be older than the other two, reached out to touch Nine. She flinched away immediately, pulling June in closer to her.

"I know you don't know me, but I need you to trust me, Nine. Please."

He was proving himself to be the exact opposite of trustworthy. How did he know who she was? He must be working with the doctor. He must have escaped the locked basement and sent them to find her. She shook her head a little too violently at him. No. No. No. With June still in her arms, she felt herself slowly inching away.

"I know Ten."

She froze.

"We all do."

Her eyes danced between all three of them. The boy who was crouching before her had a look in his eye that was almost begging her to believe him. The two younger boys standing behind him nodded in confirmation.

Once again, Nine pulled June closer to her chest, but with her other hand reached out and grabbed the begging boy's wrist, searching his memories with one intention in mind. Ten. Ten. Ten.

* * *

 _Steve's two shithead friends had ditched him at a party in the city, and he was contemplating leaving when someone interrupted his thoughts by obnoxiously shouting, "Party's here!"_

 _Steve looked toward the door, curious to see Indianapolis' best, just in time to catch sight of two beautiful, dark haired girls walking through the door. They squealed with excitement as they hugged their friends._

" _You don't find girls like that in Hawkins," joked Nate, and Steve turned to see that his friend, along with his friend's new roommate, Kevin, had rejoined him in his corner of solitude. After what happened with Nancy Wheeler last Halloween, Steve decided he was not one for parties._

" _Or_ that _," Kevin said with a nod._

 _Steve turned back to discover a girl with short hair wearing blue denim shorts and a black long sleeved shirt walk through the door. She was pale, even in the peak of summer, and Steve could not help but admire the shape of her button nose and the curve of her full lip, even from a distance. She was not just_ pretty _, and immediately Steve knew it was not just a passing attraction. He felt drawn to her as if she were magnetic._

 _He let his eyes trail down her figure, but they were stopped short by the hand on her waist, and for the first time Steve noticed the boy standing next to her. Tall and lanky, he was dressed in all black and his arms were covered in badly drawn tattoos. She had a boyfriend. Shit._

 _The way she looked up at him with all of the care in the world sent a wave of jealousy_ _through Steve, and it made him stop and ask himself why. He had only ever observed the girl for a few seconds, let alone ever spoken to her._

 _Some muscular guy walked over to them and handed the happy couple drinks, and then leaned in to whisper something in the boyfriend's ear. The boyfriend grinned before kissing the other guy. Holy shit. Not a boyfriend. Well, not_ hers _anyway. All lost hope was regained._

 _Steve smiled to himself as the girl downed the drink in her hand a beelined to the kitchen alone, taking note of the unique sway to her hips as she walked. Apparently his shithead friends had been watching the short scene unfold, too. "Damn. The things I would do to that girl…" Nate deadpanned._

" _Don't be a dick, man," Steve snapped in defense of the stranger. He downed the rest of his drink and pushed past his friends in pursuit of the kitchen._

" _Where the hell are you going, Steve?" Nate called after him._

" _Where the hell do you think?"_

" _Aww, come on man. She's way too hot, even for you," Kevin said._

 _Steve knew they were right. This girl was so attractive it hurt, but he also somehow knew that she was so much more than that. A feeling in his gut told him he needed to talk to her. That somehow she was special. Maybe he was just crazy. Or maybe it was the alcohol._

 _Either way, he made his way through the crowd and into the kitchen to find her sitting on the counter in the corner, drink in hand, lightly swaying from side to side to the beat of the music. He stopped in his tracks when a girl in a denim jacket (one of the squealing, dark haired girls from before) handed her a shot, which she threw back even though her expression seemed pained by it._

 _Denim jacket girl began firing questions, though over the music Steve could not make out what they were saying. The girl of interest answered everything by simply shaking her head from left to right or up and down, until one comment caused her to throw her head back laughing before her friend scurried off to join the rest of the party, leaving the girl alone._

 _Her grin faltered when her friend left, though she returned to contently swaying. Steve continued to go unnoticed, but the magnet slowly pulled him closer. She leaned her head back against the cabinet behind her and closed her eyes, the remnants of a smile ghosting her lips. Steve could tell this party was the last place she wanted to be, and smiled to himself at the one thing they already had in common._

 _Her pull on him grew stronger and he took a deep breath, crossing the rest of the kitchen to where she sat near some bottles of booze and mixers. '_ Just act like you don't care,' _he reminded himself. He took a deep breath and looked up to her, his eyes skimming all the details of her face. '_ Don't fuck this up, Harrington.'

 _He heard himself begin talking, but he could not remember what he was even_ _saying. She lifted her head and opened her eyes to look at him, and he felt his heart drop to his stomach._

* * *

Ten. Nine dropped his hand and she felt a whirlwind of different emotions run through her. She looked back to the boy crouched before her, and this time she was the one in disbelief. ' _He knows Ten,'_ echoed through her mind and suddenly she was so close to seeing her sister again she could almost taste it.

"Help?"  
"Yeah. Yeah, of course."  
"She needs help."  
"Shit. Right."

The boy leaned over and listened for June's breath. His eyes went wide as he scooped the young blonde girl up in his arms and started in the direction they had just come from.

"Signal Hopper, tell him to meet us at my car."

He took off running with June, and Nine scrambled to her feet to sprint after him. However, she was weak and did not make it very far. Leaning against a tree for support, she stopped to catch her breath. The other two boys had been running after her, and trailed not to far behind. Once she was stopped, they caught up quickly.

"Wow, you're fast."  
"You don't need to run, we'll catch up with them."

Nine looked back and forth between the two boys and nodded, but her jumbled mind really was not sure what to think. She reached for one of their hands and looked for Ten.

* * *

 _Figuring he could use the help and Steve's kitchen, Dustin recruited Rose to help make a birthday cake for his mom, which they both quickly realized was a mistake. Neither of them knew what they were doing. He found the directions impossible to follow, and so they played off it like a guessing game. Dustin kept using the terms 'oops' while Rose kept using the term 'sweet salt,' because she could not remember the word for sugar. They got halfway through stirring the batter when they realized Steve did not even own a baking pan. Casualties included the entire bottle of vanilla extract they dropped into the mix and the three eggs they lost to the floor._

 _They were about to just give up when Dustin remembered Max and El had made a cake for Mike's birthday. He called Max for help but every time one of them tried to explain their situation, it sent them into another fit of giggles, so they just told her to hurry. She showed up quickly, expecting some sort of emergency. Instead she discovered Dustin and Rose looking like little kids on the kitchen floor, with each covered in a layer of flour while they clutched their stomachs and laughed so hard that their ribs ached._

* * *

Ten. They truly knew her, too. So Nine would pretend to trust them until she actually did.

A cold gust of wind sent shivers down her spine and the boys noticed her outfit for the first time: a tattered hospital gown covered in dirt and June's blood. The dark skinned boy shed his outermost layer and held it out for her. Nine blinked at the coat a few times before the other boy - the one who's past she had just seen - took it from his friend and draped it over Nine's shoulders. It was warm from the boy's body heat and she wrapped it tighter around herself. She thanked them both with a small smile.

"You look just like her."  
"Uh, no shit, that's how twins work."  
"I know damn well how twins work, it's just… uncanny."

After she found herself looking back and forth between the boys again, she began walking in the direction the other boy took June while the younger kids followed closely behind and continued to talk amongst themselves.

* * *

The first thing she saw past the trees were two cars, just like the ones June had warned her about. Except these ones were stopped. Three boys stood between them, looking down at the ground. Nine recognized one as the boy who took June. The other two looked younger - the same age as the two boys she was walking with now. On the ground was June, receiving chest compressions form an older man dressed in all beige as he begged her to stay with him - it was becoming her mantra.

The boy who took June noticed Nine near the edge of the woods first, and began walking over to her and the boys, but he was just in her way. She pushed through him and sped over, falling to her knees on the ground next to June, earning her shocked reactions from the three new boys. But Nine was too busy taking June's cold cheeks in her hands.

She could not see anything, no matter how hard she tried. June was gone.

No. That's not right. It was not supposed to end like this.

"No. No no no. She lives, I saw it… I-I saw it."  
"I'm doing everything I can, kid."

Tears threatened Nine's eyes but she could not allow herself to cry. Seeing the past had made her weak, but she would not let it show. She had to be strong. For herself, and for June.

Nine knew what it was like to die. She knew June was lost in the peaceful black with no need to remember anything at all. But Nine took the girl's hand in both of hers and tried to project her own present into June's lifeless body, anyways. She tried to think thoughts about how sorry she was, and how guilty she felt. Thoughts about how hard it was to die and come back, but that June was strong enough to do it. How they would eat strawberries on her birthday, and how they would find Ten and Alex, and how everything would be okay. They would be okay. She just had to come back first.

But then Nine realized she was crazy. She was not projecting, she was holding the hand of a dead girl and thinking of all the things she wished she could say but did not know the words. Then she realized she hardly knew June at all. But that never mattered because they had shared a mutual goal and understanding which lead to an indescribable bond. They had wanted nothing more than to help each other, but Nine had let her down. June was gone.

The man stopped the compressions to check her pulse, but everyone knew she was not coming back.

"I'm so sorry, June."  
"Junie Fletcher?"

Nine looked up to see the smallest boy, one who was not in the woods with her, looking to her. His eyebrows were raised expectantly for a question Nine did not know the answer to. The raven-haired boy next to him frowned.

"You know her?"  
"Yeah… If it's really Junie. Jonathan knows her brother, but I haven't seen them around in a while."

Her brother. He knows her poor brother. It was a stab to Nine's heart. They had both been so close to getting everything they were after. So close to Alex and Ten. So close to eating strawberries in May. If only, if only, if only.

"Is he Alex?"  
"Yeah…"

A single tear slid down Nine's cheek. It is amazing how much the heart hurts when it breaks.


	11. Red & White

**A/N: Hi, everyone! I just wanted to quickly let you know that I originally planned for this to be around fifteen chapters, but now I'm realizing it's probably going to be more like eighteen or so.**

 **As always, thank you for your incredible support and I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

 _STEVE_ / Red & White

Never in a million years did Steve imagine himself meeting Nine. He also never imagined having a body in his bathtub. Yet here he was: Kneeling on the bathroom floor in front of where his girlfriend's undead twin sat on the counter as he cleaned the dirt out of the cuts and scrapes on her knees and feet, just a turn of the head away from being face to face with the body of a girl they had nowhere else to put. Not until they processed what had just happened. Not until they came up with a plan. It strange times like these that made Steve question how he allowed his life to get to this point, but had learned by now that it was best not to dwell on it. If he did, he would probably throw up from shock, like Lucas and Will did earlier. They were _all_ in shock. They were all trying to process the fact that they watched a girl die.

They had brought Nine and the deceased, June, back to Steve's house where they figured they could clean the former up and get her into some of Rose's clothes. Luckily, Rose and Jane were still at Joyce's, giving Steve and Hopper time to think things through.

Before they could do that, Steve wanted to make sure Nine was cleaned up before anything got infected. The crimson blood had begun to dry on her shins and its contrast caused her skin to appear paper white. Steve sat and washed it up with a cloth and soapy water, sticking Band-Aids over her knees and open wounds of her feet, but he could not bring himself to look up to her. She just looked _so_ much like Rose. But not quite. So close to being perfectly identical, but slightly and distressingly off, and that was his issue.

It was not that Steve did not think Nine was pretty, after all they had the same face, but everything Steve loved the most about Rose was absent from her sister and it was bizzare for him to see. She was hard where Rose was soft in every way. The sharp outlines of her skeleton, her set and sullen expression, the cold behind her blue eyes. It was not just her appearance, either. She had a way of carrying herself that was similar yet entirely different to Rose. Steve understood as much as he could all of the trauma she had been through, especially with June, but in a roundabout way that made it harder for Steve. Nine did not get upset about it the way he was used to Rose getting upset about things. In fact, Nine had hardy gotten upset at all. Or reacted in any way past the single tear she shed. But then again, Rose had always described her sister as being the stronger of the two.

He got the courage to look to her when he was finished tending to her wounds and let go of her leg. Her expression remained flat and impassable but her eyes came back to life from whatever future of his she had been watching.

She looked down at her bony and bandaged knees, extending her legs straight out into the air and flexing her toes. "Thanks," she said quietly.

"Yeah, no problem," he told her, picking up the little paper Band-Aid packages from the floor. "I'll get you some of her clothes to change into. Are you hungry?"

Hopping down from the counter, careful to land on her toes before putting pressure on the injuries of her feet, Nine nodded a little too vigorously. Steve smirked at the memory of Rose in his shirt and sunglasses the morning after they met and how she shoveled food into her mouth like she had not eaten in weeks.

Later, once she had changed out of the hospital gown, Nine had a similar method of eating when Steve placed the food down in front of her. Except no one had ever taught Nine how to use a fork, so she ate with her fingers. Hopper sat down at the kitchen table across from her, not waiting for her to finish eating before getting into his interrogation.

"So, what's your story, kid?" he asked in hopes he would stop to breathe between bites sometime soon.

She looked up from her plate with widened eyes. After noticing Hopper across from her for the first time, she glanced from him to Steve to the group of staring boys, then back to him.

"I think you're scaring her, Chief," Dustin hesitantly mentioned.

Hop sighed and sat back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest. "I think we're both a little scared of each other. Can we agree to that?"

Nine did not reply. She just sat looking at him and chewing slowly.

Hop switched tactics, and turned to the younger boys. "You two," he said in his policeman voice, pointing to Lucas and Mike. "Go get your girlfriends. Will, you go with them, and have your mother bring Rose. They're all still at that 'girl time' thing, right?" The four teenagers nodded. "Great, so go get them and have them meet you back here, but do _not_ tell them anything until they get here. Got it?"

"Got it," three of the teenagers echoed before turning to leave.

Hopper turned to the one remaining party member. "Dustin… Make yourself useful."

"Gee, Chief. What an honor," Dustin replied dryly, walking over to stand near Steve who chuckled at the sarcasm.

Hopper was not so amused, ignoring the comment completely. As soon as the front door shut behind Mike, Will, and Lucas, the chief reached for his cigarettes. "Do you mind?" he asked Steve.

"Yeah, kinda," Steve told him.

Hopper groaned in a similar fashion to his teenage daughter before returning the carton to his pocket. Another beat passed before the chief focused his attentions back on Nine. "Listen, kid, I know this is probably overwhelming for you, and I promise Rose - I mean Ten will be here soon, but you have to understand that it's been crazy for us, too. We all thought you were dead."

Nine stopped eating and sat back in her chair, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her heels on the edge of the seat. She spoke quietly and never made eye contact, but finally she began answering his questions. "I was."

The crease of Hop's forehead grew deeper, and he opened and closed his mouth a few times trying to make sense of it all. "You were... dead?"

"Yes. He brought me back."

Before Hop had the chance to ask who, she was reaching across the table and taking his hand. But she was not looking at him, she was showing him something. Like Rose had once shown Steve the future, except Nine did it with ease.

Hopper came back with a stunned - almost sickened - look on his face, as if he could not believe what he had just seen. " _He_ brought you back?"

"No. Papa did. The doctor did everything else."

"Who?" Steve asked Hop, who looked so distressed by this information that Steve only assumed he recognized 'the doctor' she referred to.

"Owens," the chief muttered.

The name was a punch in the gut. Owens. The same man that had helped Jane and Will over the past year. The same man that had been helping and studying Rose for the past week. He had made himself trustworthy and they had let him in, only to discover he had been keeping something from them. Something huge. Nine. He had known she was alive this whole time. What else could he be hiding?

Steve felt the blood drain from his face and his hands form fists in anger and confusion. "What do you mean by 'everything else'?" he asked Nine, his tone harsher than anticipated. When she did not respond, he crossed the kitchen and knelt in front of the girl that looked just like Rose but not quite. "What did he do to you?"

Her cold, sapphire eyes went wide, a the first falter he noticed in her hard expression.

"Dude. You're scaring her, too," Dustin cut in, pulling Steve out of the way. He turned his attention back toward Nine and offered her a wide and toothy smile. "Sorry about them, they get cranky in their old age… They're just freaked out 'cause they know Owens, too."

He pulled a chair close, but not too close, to Nine and sat in it before extending a hand to the girl. Hesitantly, she took it, before slipping into his visions.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked Dustin once Nine was zoned out.

"Making myself useful," Dustin responded simply.

It was not long until the roles switched and Nine was the one showing Dustin something. She released his hand and he came back to fill the other two in.

"According to Owens, Papa found her dead on the night of a thousand Demodogs," Dustin began. "He brought her back, and she was in a coma for a year. She woke up and she was not in Hawkins Lab anymore, she was in the care of Owens who trained her to expand her powers so that she could help June."

"Expand her powers?" asked Steve.

"Help June with what?" asked Hopper at the same time.

Dustin shrugged, and Nine took his hand again to show him the answers.

"Owens trained her to expand her powers so that she could reach her 'full potential,'" he told them afterwards. "She sees everything: past, present, future, Void. And, obviously, she can do that awesome projection thing. Owens expanded them so that she could help him help June, who got sick after what looked like a visit to the Upside Down."

Steve wanted to ask more about the expansion of powers, but before he could Hopper was already shifting the subject. "And the sickness she got from the Upside Down… That's what she died from?"

"Yes," Nine answered, through Hopper had seemed to be asking Dustin the questions at this point.

"Were there any others?"

"No," Nine shook her head slightly. "Just the doctor and June."

"How did the two of you escape?" Chief Hopper had gotten over his initial shock and was now in full interrogation mode.

Nine got up from the table abruptly and walked over to the bathroom. The three other boys shared a glance between themselves before getting up to follow.

Kneeling in front of the tub, Nine brushed the blonde hair out of the girl's face before reaching for her fisted hand. Nine forced her fingers open to reveal a bulky set of keys, which she handed to Hopper while showing something to Dustin once again.

The younger boy chuckled to himself a bit after he came back to his own preset. "She fucking knocked him out and took his keys. They ran and June locked Owens in the basement."

"He kept you in a basement?" Steve asked, but Nine just shrugged because she did not know and looked back down at her friend in the tub forlornly. Another kink in her armor.

They stood in silence for a moment, listening to the the sound of breathing and Hopper shifting through the colored labels on Doctor Owens' keys. Everyone's mind was spinning, trying to make sense of it all.

That was until they heard Nine's sharp intake of breath and saw her head jerk up from where she was looking at the floor. "She's here."

"What?" everyone else asked in unison.

"She's here," she repeated, pushing through the boys to step out into the hallway. She faced the front door but remained frozen in the hall near the bathroom. "I can feel her."

Sure enough they all heard the sound of car doors slamming and bikes clattering on the lawn.

Dustin moved to open the front door, while Nine stayed planted in the hallway next to Steve. Hopper crossed the bathroom and opened the window, letting the winter air in for June, before joining Steve in the hallway and closing the door behind him.

"Looks like the whole gang's back together," Hopper muttered dryly to Steve as Mike, Will, and Lucas walked into the house followed by Jane and Max, and then (unexpectedly) Nancy and Jonathan.

The latter four stopped their conversation immediately as soon as they saw Nine. Frozen in the entryway, they all muttered "Holy shit." Dustin was quick to usher them all to the living room.

"Move," he complained.

As soon as they were out of the way, Dustin moved to exit the home and take over for Joyce who was outside leading Rose in.

Still Nine did not budge from her spot in the hall, and neither did Steve next to her. Hop however, moved to meet Joyce at the door and whispered something in her ear. The woman looked from the chief to the kids in the living room to Steve and Nine where they stood in the hall. Her mouth fell open slightly, but she was the first to offer the girl a warm smile.

"Stop here. Once these old people get their asses out of the way, there's a big step up," Dustin - who had gotten quite good at being Rose's eyes - warned and she giggled at the lame joke.

When Joyce and Hopper shuffled into the living room, Steve heard Nine's breath hitch in her throat, and he turned to watch her stone expression crack and crumble entirely. Every emotion she had been keeping bottled inside flashed across her face at the sight of her sister. Heartbreak, loss, guilt, love, joy, wonder, amazement, etc.

"The doorway's right here," Dustin said, placing Rose's free hand on the wooden frame for support. "Like I said, one big step up…"

She successfully made her way through the door, but like everyone else she stopped in her tracks. Steve watched her grip tighten around Dustin's arm and her smile falter. The red flush drained from her face, turning her a ghostly white. Similarly to her twin, a few emotions flashed across her face. Confusion, grief, disbelief, euphoria and then confusion again.

For seconds or minutes, everything was eerily silent and still as everyone held their breaths collectively. Rose's brows pulled together before softening again and she had to grip Dustin's arm with both of her hands to support herself.

"Nine?" Rose breathed in a shaky exhale, feeling her sister's presence, too.


	12. The Lost Twin

_NINE /_ The Lost Twin

"Nine?"

She could not find the words to reply. Ten's grip repeatedly tightened and loosened around the arm of the boy Nine now knew as Dustin. Slowly, dragging him with her, Ten followed the gravitational pull she felt toward her sister. Nine did the same, walking just as slow.

Ten stopped in the middle, once she and her sister were only separated by about a foot. To their onlookers, it was probably a seemingly unusual reunion. They stood close, but neither touched. Physical affection was not something they had often shown each other, as touches had almost always been used to share visions. Neither spoke, either. In the lab, they were used to never needing many words, communicating through gestures and glances, operating on the same wavelength.

Nine could tell there was something wrong about Ten and the way she never lifted her eyes to meet her sister's. Not knowing what else to do, she waited for what could have been seconds or minutes or hours for her twin to make the first move. But eventually, she did.

Ten reached out slowly but carefully to find her sisters face. Lightly, she traced the slope of Nine's nose with her index finger.

* * *

 _The group of eight young adults in puffy winter jackets ascended the staircase in a large cluster. Ten led the way along with the boy dressed in all black, whose hand she grasped for support. She looked happy. Ridiculously happy._

* * *

It was just the one simple touch, then Ten dropped her arm back to the side. It was all she needed. Nine came back to her own present to find a heartwarming yet heartbroken smile spread across Ten's face. Nine felt her own mirror the expression.

Even though Ten's eyes would not meet Nine's, she knew her sister well enough to see the question in them. It was the same question Nine was asking with her own. ' _What happened?_ '

Nine moved this time to lay a hand on Ten's cheek like she had a million times before. Assuming Ten would do the same, Nine searched for the answer to her own question, and watched her twin's memory for the first time.

* * *

 _Ten had made it to some sort of grassy clearing. She had been running for days on end, just as Nine had instructed, and it was starting to get dark again. There were footpaths were people could walk and benches were strangers sat and flowers decorated the whole area. She had never seen anything like it, not even in memories._

 _She stayed near the edge of the forest with her hands on her knees to catch her breath. It was a goddamn miracle she had made it this far. It is amazing what the body will do in order to survive._

 _But she had not eaten since the lab, and had been living off of fat stores and adrenaline. Her breath slipped away as quickly as it had caught up to her and colors spotted her vision. She felt nauseous, but there was nothing in her stomach to vomit up._

" _Running away from the hospital? That probably wasn't the best idea, you don't look so good…"_

 _A boy loomed in her peripheral. He wore all black and his wide smile stood out against the night. She looked to him and felt her brows pull together before she blacked out entirely._

 _When she woke up, she was on one of the benches staring at the night sky. The view was quickly blocked when the tall boy leaned over her._

" _You okay? I'm glad I was there to catch you, jeez… I thought about taking you back to the hospital, but you don't have one of those bracelets."_

 _He sat her up slowly. He gave her snacks and water, the coat off of his back and the shoes off of his feet. When he said he was sorry that he was not a good nurse and that his friend Alisha was much better at taking care of people, she wanted to tell him that she was eternally grateful for him, but she could not find the words. Instead she shook her head slightly. He seemed to understand._

 _He asked her for her name, and she did not know what to say. Instead she just stared down at the tattoo on her wrist._

" _Your name's Ten?"  
_ " _Yes."  
_ " _That's kinda cool..."_

 _The boy informed her that he was staying at his friend's place for the night, and told Ten she was welcome to come along, but he would understand if she thought that was creepy. When she did not respond he assured her that although he may not look it, he was 'as gay as they come.' She did not know what that meant but accepted his offer._

 _He waited patiently for her to be ready to stand up and get going, and filled her silence by telling stories all about himself and his friends. When she finished her food and her water, she began feeling her strength come back and feeling return to her toes. He helped her to her feet and supported her body weight with his own on the walk to their dwellings for the night. She had never felt so thankful._

" _Oh yeah, I'm Josh, by the way. But absolutely everyone calls me Tack."_

* * *

Nine's eyes came back to life and she expected to find Ten's blank expression do the same, but it seemed as though it had never shifted in the first place. Either Ten could not or would not see anything at all.

Instead she stood, chewing her lip and Nine's heart panged with familiarity. She lifted her hand once again, but this time pushed the visions away as she gently pressed on Ten's lower lip until she released it from between her teeth. Right on cue, Ten gave her the same old small smile and fumbled to return the favor, knowing Nine would be biting her lip, too.

Ten was the first to break the long silence Nine had not taken note of. It was only a whisper, but the sound resonated deep inside her heart.

"Say something."  
"You can't see me?"  
"No."

Tears pooled in Ten's blue eyes and two dared to trail down her cheek. Nine knew that if she were not the one to wipe them away, then Ten would just let them fall. So she did.

* * *

 _The world was happening around her, but all Ten could see was black. She stood leaning against the wall while she listened to the familiar voices of Joyce and Steve. They were contemplating and theorizing and Ten did not have the heart to tell them that they would never find answers. After Ten had rendered herself entirely useless, she had quickly grown accustomed to people talking about her as if she were not in the room. Sometimes she wanted to remind people that she was blind not deaf but she did not have the energy._

 _Often, she felt trapped in her own mind like she had been at the lab. Only this time she was in the world and she knew what it was like, she just could not experience it anymore. Not fully, atleast. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed with Nine like they did when she had nightmares as a kid._

 _The sound of footsteps coming toward her. Her favorite smell of laundry detergent mixed with strong coffee and something entirely his own gave him away quickly. Steve. She felt her lips instinctively curl into a small smile. He was just passing by to get down the hall, but lately he always stopped to run a reassuring hand over her arm and kiss her forehead. Often she wondered if it was a conscious action. Even more often, she wondered how he could still want her like this. And yet, every free moment he had was spent by her side. Ten knew he deserved better, but for now she allowed herself to be selfish._

 _The moment passed and his footsteps continued down the hall behind her. Leaning her head against the wall, she closed her eyes, though it made no difference to her whether or not they were open. She debated calling Alisha, but did not know how to tell her that she had just wanted to hear her voice. Or see her face. She would give anything for one last moment to memorize her friends' smiles._

* * *

"Ten."

The single word out of Nine's mouth caused something to break in Ten's heart, and her face collapsed with it. Suddenly, she was wrapping Nine up into a hug. Having only ever received brief and stiff hugs from Papa whenever she did him proud, Nine did not know how to react. She just stood with her arms at her side, as stoic as ever, while her sister spilled tears over the same shoulder June had bled on just hours ago. Ten continued to speak to her lost twin in murmurs.

"I saw you die."  
"I did."  
"I missed you so much."  
"I know."

Someone started a slow clap but was quickly told in a whisper-scream to knock it off. Ten stiffened, suddenly remembering there were others watching them. She pulled away just as abruptly as she came in, and their cheeks brushed as she did so. A memory came on its own.

* * *

 _Jane held up her own arm next to Ten's to reveal the matching tattoo on the inside of her own wrist. 010 and 011._

 _"Sister," Jane said so softly it was almost a whisper. But there was something else there, too. Something in her voice that made it seem like they had lived a thousand lives together. She raised her eyes to meet Ten's, smiling a toothy and youthful and wrapping her in a hug._

 _"Yes," Ten whispered as she hugged the younger girl back. "Sister." Tears threatened to overflow as she wished Nine was here to meet Jane, too, and the three of them could be sisters together._

* * *

Ten let go of Nine completely, dropping her hands to her sides. She began speaking to the crowd.

"Where's Jane?"  
"Right here."

A younger girl with shoulder length curls and brown doe eyes stepped forward. The girl from the vision. She looked to Ten with peaked brows and Ten turned her head in the direction of her voice, smiling softly at the memory Nine had just seen. June took a few hesitant steps before crossing the rest of the space between them more confidently. She placed a hand on Ten's elbow when she arrived.

"This is Eleven."

Much like she had with June, Nine connected instantly with the familiar hollowness of a stolen life in Eleven's eyes, the kind one can only notice if they know what they're looking for. Eleven pushed up her sleeve and presented her tattoo. Nine did the same. Ten did not need to see to know what was going on, and did not hesitate to peel back her sleeve, too. Nine was quick to move so that their arms lined up in numerical order. The moment seemed as powerful as Nine felt. They all smiled to themselves at the sight.

009 and 010 and 011. The three of them together. Sisters.

* * *

Ten quickly grew sick of the feeling of being watched by so many others. It did not take much longer for her to lead Nine back through the house with arms sweeping in front of her, bumping into everything anyways, and refusing help from anybody.

Eventually she stumbled into the bedroom, Nine following close behind. As she pulled the covers back, Nine recognized the bed as the one from the Void. Shivers went down her spine at the memory of Ten calling out her name.

Ten climbed in and Nine quickly followed. Although the bed was bigger than the lab's tiny cots, they each lay facing each other on their sides, separated only by an inch or two. Ten began pulling up the sheets and Nine helped the rest of the way, pulling the cotton fabric up over their heads like they had as kids.

Ten's expression remained one of shock, disbelief, and wondering when she was going to wake up. But it was not a dream. Nine knew the feeling all too well. It dominated most others ever since she came back to life, with the exception of all the loss and gain she had felt all at once today.

She pushed Ten's lip from her teeth again, and she grinned. For Nine, joy was foreign on the face of her sister, who she had always remembered as wallowing in the sadness she had boxed herself in. It took Ten a few tries to find Nine's mouth, but once she did her finger pushed down on Nine's lip until her teeth released it.

Nine longed to reach out and let Ten see everything she had been through, but Nine now knew she could not see anymore.

But maybe, just maybe there was a way around it.

With the fragment of the future she had seen earlier, Nine reached out and projected to test her idea.

* * *

 _The group of eight young adults in puffy winter jackets ascended the staircase in a large cluster. Ten led the way along with the boy dressed in all black, whose hand she grasped for support. She looked happy. Ridiculously happy._

* * *

Judging by the look on Ten's face, Nine knew she had seen it. It had worked.

"How?"

Nine placed her hand back on her sister's cheek, happy to show her everything she had missed.

When Owens had brought her powers to their full potential, Nine felt whole. But it was not until she climbed under the sheets with Ten like they used to that she felt complete. Her twin was her other half, her missing piece, and the only true light she had ever known. She had found her. She would continue to find her time and time again if she had to.

* * *

 **A/N: I'm sorry this for the long author's note but thank you for taking the time to read it!**

 **Merry Christmas, loves! And if you don't celebrate Christmas then I hope your holiday season is treating you well. I am travelling for the holiday, so I won't be able to update again until the 28th, but after that I will be back to posting regularly.**

 **I also wanted to mention that I am sorry that June's death made some of you sad, but at the same time I suppose it means I was doing something right. I had June's death planned from the beginning. She was originally supposed to be a small character, there only to help Nine escape. I never initially intended her to have enough depth to really form an opinion over. In fact, her chapter was originally supposed to be Nine's POV, but the more I wrote for her, the more I liked her and the more she formed into more than just what she was originally intended to be. When she passed, my heart broke for her, too.**

 **I considered letting her live, but her death is significant to Nine's arc, as you will see more of. I am sorry if it made you sad, it made me sad, too, but in a twisted way, it's a compliment that the words I write make you feel something. So, thank you so much for continuing to read and support this story. It really does mean the world to me and you are all so inspiring.**

 **On a lighter note, I can't wait to see what you all think of Nine and Ten's reunion, so if you have a moment please let me know! And, once again, have a happy holiday! xx**


	13. Knuckles

**A/N: Hey, everyone! Sorry it's been a bit longer than I had anticipated. I know I said I would be back on the 28th, but I caught the flu and for a few days I was dead to the world. So, I am sorry to keep you waiting but I am back now and, for the most part, feeling better!**

 **I hope you all had a great holiday! Thank you so much for the amazing reviews, they always put a smile on my face. Phieillydinyia named Nine and Ten's sister ship 'Nineteen' and I love it, so thank you for that!**

* * *

 _STEVE_ / Knuckles

"Here's the plan," Hop started in a low voice, scratching at the scruff on his chin. A little while after Rose disappeared into the bedroom, the chief had pulled Steve and Joyce off into the spare room to discuss what the next steps should be while Dustin buzzed to the other kids (plus Jonathan and Nancy) about what he had been shown of Nine's escape.

"They all need to lay low - not just the twins, but Jane, too - until this whole thing gets sorted out," he continued. "I have a place in mind just over the border of Illinois and I'd trust Jonathan or Nancy to drive them. Joyce, you make sure all the kids are alright, they saw a girl die today and I can't imagine it's easy for them," Joyce nodded in agreement. "I'll stay back to take care of the girl and take care of Owens. Sound easy enough?"

"What about me?" Steve asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

"For you, it's business as usual, kid." Hop said, patting Steve on the shoulder. He made a move to exit the room, but the younger man was quick to block him.

"You're kidding, right? I'll drive. Let it be 'business as usual' for Jonathan and Nancy but you know damn well that I can't just sit this one out."

Hop pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking through his next words before he spoke them. "Listen, kid, I'm not giving you an option. You _can_ sit this one out, and you will."

"Hop -" Joyce tried, but was ignored by both men in the room.

"She needs me!" Steve insisted, trying to keep his voice low and his growing frustration under control.

"You're damn right, she needs you," Hopper snapped right back. "She needs you to stay here and work and pay bills so she has a home to come back to once all of this shit has blown over. Understand?"

Steve opened his mouth to argue, but quickly closed it when he realized the chief was right, though that only made things worse somehow. The flush of resentment crept quickly up his neck.

"Now if you'll excuse me," Hopper continued, pushing past Steve, "There's a twelve-year-old girl in your tub, and I need to talk to Jonathan about where I might find her brother."

When the door slammed behind the chief, and all of the emotions Steve had been holding in since Rose woke up blind suddenly seemed overwhelming. He clenched and unclenched his fists rhythmically to try and keep his emotions from overflowing, but it was not working.

Steve was angry, so angry. And it was all toward himself. He hated that he could not provide the answers Rose needed, and even more that he had trusted Owens to help find them. Who knows what kind of information that sick bastard had been collecting from her under the guise of 'monitoring'. He hated that he could not save June, and even more that part of him blamed himself for her death. If only he had driven faster, run quicker, had not been so distracted by the fact that Nine was right in front of him, then maybe she could have been saved. And he hated that he and Rose needed eachother but that for some indefinite amount of time, he could not be there for her. He hated himself for knowing Hopper was right.

He felt the urge to cry, so he punched the wall instead.

Pain shot up through his wrist and his knuckles spit as his fist put a hole in the wall. "Ah, fuck," he cursed not only at the pain, but the damaged drywall more than anything else. "I'll fix that. Shit… I'll fix it," he assured no one in particular, though a concerned Joyce had witnessed the whole scene.

Steve turned to find the woman looking at him with wide eyes of concern. "Sorry," he muttered for no reason in particular - after all, it was not her wall.

"Are you alright?" she asked in her mom voice.

He was not sure how to answer the question, so he pressed his forehead against the wall and inspected his bloody knuckles instead. "Sorry," he murmured again after a beat of silence.

"Oh, let me see," Joyce insisted, taking his battered hand in her own for examination.

The door opened suddenly, once again. Nancy appeared in the room wearing the same concerned expression as Joyce. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," Steve lied shortly, lifting his head to look at her.

Already, it was one of the longest conversations the two had since the night the Gate closed, for no real reason other that things were extraordinarily awkward between them. It was easy to ignore when Will Byers' life was on the line, but as soon as things started settling back to normal, whatever 'normal' was anymore, they quickly realized that the reality of their situation had not set them up for the closest friendship, no matter how much time he found himself spending with her brother. They were civil, but still, seeing Nancy in his house was off putting.

Their extensive conversation was cut short by the sound of a thump followed by a curse and a short laugh from the other room. At this point, Steve undoubtedly knew it was Rose running into something.

"Shit," he muttered to himself before pushing past Nancy.

He made it to the hallway just in time to see Nine open the door to the bedroom, her face returned to its stone mask. Rose stood behind clutching her hip where it hurt, though her expression did not read pain; it read concern similar to Joyce and Nancy's, but not quite.

She reached out and gave her twin a gentle shove out into the hallway, simultaneously showing her a vision.

When Rose dropped her arm, she started toward the hall but Steve got to her before she could do anymore accidental harm to herself.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

" _You're_ asking _me_?" she replied.

Unlike the others, she did not ask if he was alright, because to her the answer was obvious. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him, raising to her tiptoes and pulling him in close for a hug. He buried his face into the crook of her neck, still feeling like he might cry but not wanting to be seen by whoever may be watching.

"Steve," she whispered into his shoulder, just loud enough for him to hear.

"She was breathing when we found her," he murmured back. The words came out of his mouth before his brain had even consciously put them together, and he realized that June's death was something he had not fully processed. At the moment, the guilt he felt was what was bothering him the most. "Just barely, but she was still breathing. I-I just wasn't fast enough."

"It's not your fault," she reminded him, and he pulled her closer. He assumed Nine must have told her all about it. "You did everything you could."

"Hop wants you to go somewhere," he told her next, trying not to think about June. "Somewhere in Illinois, I think. You and Nine and Jane. Just until he can figure everything out with Owens, but I can't come with you."

Rose did not say anything, just hugged him tighter.

Then, Steve felt Nine's fingers on the back of his hand for just a moment, before they quickly disappeared. "Not long," she whispered.

"What?" Steve pulled away from Rose just enough to look at her twin, hoping he would find the answer in her face but her expression was still as hard and set as stone.

"We won't be gone long," Rose translated.

He shifted his gaze back toward Rose, but her head was turned toward her sister and her facial expression was one Steve did not recognize.

Nine nodded in response to whatever she got out of the look, but then remembered that Rose could not see her and added out loud, "Beige, too."

Rose smirked to herself, somehow understanding the response, before she made a second face. This time, Nine motioned with her hands - pointing to something with two fingers - before quickly dropping her arms back to her sides with a huff when she remembered Rose would not be able to see.

Sensing this, Rose rolled her eyes and grabbed her sister's hand for just a moment before dropping it. Nine contemplated what she had just seen before shrugging. Her closed mouth made a noise that sounded like, "Huh… Mnn," as she touched Rose's hand again.

It was like they had created their own nearly-silent language and it was bizzare to watch.

Nine came back, dropping her touch as her sister's eyebrows raised expectantly.

"Yes," Nine told her.

"Are you -"

"Yes," she repeated.

Rose's cocked her head and Nine's expression morphed into a question. Quickly, the face faltered. "Ten -" she began in an apologetic tone, visibly frustrated that their typical method of communication was failing them without her sister's eyesight.

"It's okay," Rose assured her as her own face softened. "Okay?"

"Yes," Nine replied

Rose reached briefly for her sister, showing her something one last time before returning her attention back to Steve, who was still trying to make sense of what he had just witnessed. She buried her face in his chest again and he hugged her back.

"What the fuck just happened?" he murmured into her hair and she giggled.

"You and Hop will find Owens," she told him matter-of-factly. "But you need to go with him."

"You got all of _that_ out of... that?" he asked, unsure of what word to use to describe what had just happened between the two. It was not twin telepathy, because words and powers and frustration were involved, but they had not exactly _talked_ either.

Rose pulled away just slightly. "Yeah," she said with a shrug.

Steve's eyes bounced back and forth between the girl in his arms and the identical one just a few feet away, who was now studying a loose string on her - Rose's - shirt. He realized that to most, the fact that Nine was in Rose's clothes probably made them look even more alike, but for Steve it only made their differences stand out further.

He did not know what to make of Rose's response - or any of the events that had taken place within the past twenty-four hours - so he found himself laughing, just like he had when he found out Rose was Ten. Maybe he was finally going crazy.

Rose grinned at the sound, and Steve realized how much he had needed to see it.

* * *

Only an hour later, everyone was scrambling to get things loaded in the trunk of Jonathan's car. Both he and Nancy would be taking Rose, Nine, and Jane to the mystery location. Steve had all but physically attached himself to Rose for the time being, needing to spend as much time as he could with her before she left.

Unable to do much to help and feeling like she was more so just getting in the way, Rose seated herself at the kitchen table and Steve took his place next to her, lacing the fingers of his uninjured hand through hers. He could tell she was nervous, and wondered if she could tell he was nervous, too.

"I never said thank you," she said after a stretch of silence. "So, thank you."

"For what?" he asked.

She squeezed his hand and gave him a soft smile. "For finding Nine."

He squeezed her hand back, an attempt at being reassuring, but his anxiety shook through is falsely calm demeanor. It did not help that Rose had always been able to see through any emotional facade he tried to take on.

"We won't be gone long," she assured Steve once again, reminding him of what Nine said she had seen.

"I just wish I could go with you," he told her. His voice was weak, barely above a whisper, and he hated how it sounded. He knew he needed to be strong for himself and for Rose and for all the kids that watched the girl die, but something inside him was crumbling. In that moment, King Steve wondered if he was becoming a pussy.

"You can't," Rose said in a soft voice to match Steve's own. "You have to go with Hopper to find Owens."

Steve scoffed. "Yeah, like Hop would ever let me go with him."

"You have to," she repeated. "Nine's working on it now."

Sure enough, when Steve turned his head he saw Nine in the living room with Hopper, showing him whatever future she had seen for him.

Before Steve could ask why he had to go, Rose was already explaining what she understood best: her and her sister's powers. "The future can change, right? Well, usually when Nine sees a vision, she can choose to sit and let it happen, or she can choose to do something to change it. It's like when I saw that guy punch Tack. I could have just let it happen, but I didn't want it to, so I stepped in."

Steve shuddered at the memory of Rose stepping into the middle of the fight and pushing her friend out of the way just in time for the big guy's fist to make contact with her face. The blow had not knocked her completely unconscious, but she fell to the floor just the same.

Rose continued. "Other times, the choices _other_ people make can change the future, even if Nine wants what she saw to happen. She can see something, like when she saw herself in the future with June, but someone else made a choice that changed the outcome. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah," Steve muttered and his brain slowly wrapped itself around the idea, but still did not understand how it tied into him going to find Owens with Hop.

"And then there's a third option. Sometimes, Nine can see something happen two different ways, with two different outcomes. Usually the difference between how to get one outcome over the other is not very obvious, but this time it is… She saw what would happen if you go with Hop, but she also saw what would happen if you don't," she squeezed his hand again. "You have to go with him, Steve."

He wanted to ask what she had seen, or at the very least why, but Nancy approached them and told them it was time to go.

Nancy moved to help Rose up, but over Steve's dead body would anyone get in the way of his final few moments with Rose before they split indefinitely. Especially Nancy Wheeler.

"I got it," Rose assured both of them in their silent tension, standing up just fine on her own.

She reached for Steve then, and he pulled her into his embrace. He held on as tightly as he could without breaking her. He missed her already, and knew then that he definitely was a pussy. But for some reason, he did not mind.

"Please be careful," she whispered. "We won't be long."

He kissed her like a promise before she pulled herself away from him entirely, reaching for Nancy to lead her out to the car.

"Thanks, Nance," Steve heard Rose mumble on her way out of the door.

 _Nance._ The two girls were already friendly and it was just another thing for Steve to add to the long list of the day's unbelievable events.

The metaphorical list had become so long that Steve would not have been surprised if he suddenly woke up and it has all just been a strange, bizarre, and unexplainable dream. But he never did. Not even as he watched Jonathan Byers' car pull out of his driveway, or as he felt Dustin's sympathetic clap on his back, or as he considered punching a second hole in the wall. Not even then; because this was not a dream, this was his life.


	14. Past, Present, Future

_NINE_ / Past, Present, Future

Nine watched out of the car window as the new world flew by. It was strange and large and overwhelming. And there were people. So many people. Of the ones she met so far, her sister seemed to know all of them. How did she keep them all straight?

Nine did her best to remember names and faces, but it was a lot to keep up with. She knew Ten, of course, though Nine seemed to be the only one to call her that. Then there was Eleven. She had a second name, too, but Nine stuck to just the one for now. They boy called Dustin was one of the ones from the forest and the one she trusted the most to show her past to. A boy called Steve was the oldest of the trio that found her in the woods, and he seemed to care about Ten a lot. Jonathan was the name of the boy driving the car. His pretty friend next to him was Nancy, and she pretended not to care about Steve. Other than them, Nine felt clueless. But it was enough for now.

Squeezed in the back seat between Eleven on the passenger's side and Ten on the driver's side, Nine spent the car ride making up for lost time with her sister. Before the night at the lab, Nine and Ten had never spent more than a few hours apart, so they knew anything and everything about each other. Now that they were together again, a piece of her sister felt like a stranger, and in order to rectify that Nine felt like she needed to see everything that happened to Ten while they were apart. Ten, out of anyone, understood that. However, a year was a long time, so Ten tried to focus on just the small moments that shaped the big picture. To her, those seemed to matter the most.

* * *

 _The girls gave Ten clothes to borrow. They were strange and new and warm. They boy - Tack - set a plate of food down in front of her, though she did not recognize it at the time. Her eyes danced between the plate and the boy._

" _There's more if you want. Ty and his roommate buy the best food but always end up just going to McDonalds or some shit."_

 _Food. She nodded and smiled and Tack passed her a piece of metal. It was long and skinny and had four points at one end. As she studied the object, her new acquaintances studied her._

" _It's a fork…"  
_ " _Where did you say you were from again?"  
_ " _She didn't."_

…

 _Tack and Ten were on a walk, though she could not remember where Yaya and Alisha had gone. Ten would point to things, and Tack would tell her the word for it. She would echo it back, testing how the new vocabulary felt in her own mouth._

 _Crosswalk. Rock. Newspaper. Backpack. Coins. Cigarette. Pole. Pigeon. Cup. Disgusting._

 _Tack found the game very amusing. Ten was fascinated._

…

" _He's cute," Alisha whispered to Ten. They sat together on a bench at the park in the dead of winter. Yaya and Tack were enjoying a snowball fight not too far away._

" _Cute?"_

" _Yeah," Alisha shrugged. "Like when you think someone is good-looking… Attractive, but maybe not_ hot _."_

" _Like pretty?"_

" _Yeah… Like pretty. Except most guys don't like to be called pretty, so people call them cute instead."_

 _Ten looked over to the boy Alisha was talking about. She was right. He was pretty. "Cute," she agreed. Alisha grinned._

…

" _Hey, cutie," some drunk guy greeted._

 _The group of four were at a frat party for some college none of them went to, and after Ten had sold out of Tack's pot she had decided to hide in the kitchen to wait for everyone else._

" _I don't have any more shit," Ten told him, looking down into the cup of the drink she was nursing._

" _Oh," he said simply. "Well, I'm not looking for buds."_

 _She looked up at the boy in front of her. His messy hair was dirty blonde and his eyes were glazed over with intoxication. He stepped closer and she stepped back. He stepped closer again, and she pressed her back into the counter, crossing her arms over her chest._

" _I'm guessing you're here alone? 'Cause if you were mine I wouldn't let you out of my sight," he slurred, reaching out to touch her. Ten recoiled instinctively._

" _Hey, asshole," Yaya's voice rang through the kitchen. She was at Ten's side promptly, pulling her out from between the counter and the boy. "Why don't you leave her alone, you fuckin' wastoid, she's clearly not interested."_

 _Yaya swept Ten away before he could reply, and then out of the party entirely. They waited outside for Alisha and Tack, never spoking of the boy. Instead, Yaya told her stories that were completely unrelated but made Ten laugh._

 _..._

 _Yaya had a friend named Shelby, who went out of town for a week and told her they could stay in her shoebox apartment as long as they took care of her dog and watered her plants. The group of four gladly accepted the offer._

 _Ten sat in the living room as she flipped through the Shelby's record collection and admired the artwork with Tack. Meanwhile, the other two girls nosily explored the rest of the apartment._

" _Rose, come here!" she hard Yaya call from the bedroom. "This would look_ so _good on you."_

 _She jumped up and walked to the bedroom to find Yaya digging through the clothes in Shelby's closet while Alisha put everything back carefully to make it seem like they had never been there. In Yaya's hand was a dress on a hanger, which she insisted Ten try on. Alisha nodded in agreement._

 _The dress was a brilliant blue, similar to her eyes. The material was soft and the design simple, with off-the-shoulder long sleeves and a tight fit the whole way down to where it stopped just above the knee. Ten had never worn anything like it before, usually drowning in her oversized shirts tucked into hand-me-down jeans._

 _She emerged from the bathroom after changing into the dress and watched as Tack's eyebrows flew up his forehead, Yaya's mouth fell open slightly, and Alisha's face split into a wide grin._

" _Wow," said Tack, the first to break the silence._

" _You look…" Yaya started, trailing off to find the right word._

"Striking _," Alisha finished. They all nodded in agreement._

 _Ten was not all too sure what it meant, but took the compliment anyways as she looked down at her body in the figure-hugging dress. Her grown out hair flopped into her face and she tried to push it back out of the way to no avail._

" _Here," said Alisha, pushing past Ten and into the bathroom behind her. Grabbing a black headband from the counter, she used it to push Ten's hair back before stepping away to check out her friend once more. "I'm tellin' you, babe, I hope you know that you could get any guy you wanted."_

" _Even the gay ones," Tack joked from his spot in the living room. "I know_ I'd _go back in the closet for you."_

…

 _Later that night, after Ten changed back into her regular clothes, they all watched some cheesy romance movie, and in the end they guy kissed the girl._

" _What's that like?" she asked her friends, who's heads all snapped toward her. At this point they knew where she had come from, but most of the time she easily passed for a regular girl. They often forgot how little life experience she had._

 _Alisha, sitting next to her, looked from Ten to Tack to Yaya and then back to Ten._

" _Don't take this the wrong way," she said, sifting to face Ten. "I'm doing this because you're my friend and I love you and support you, and_ not _because you have really nice lips and we all just found out you're secretly super hot. But if you want, I'm gonna kiss you now. Okay?"_

" _Yes," Ten giggled._

 _Then Alisha's lips were on hers and Ten was pushing her visions away. It was soft and sweet and innocent. Ten pulled away before her nose started bleeding._

 _Alisha nodded approvingly. "Like I said, you could get any guy you wanted."_

 _..._

 _Ten put her hands on the edge of the counter and leaned into them. She studied the face of the boy sitting next to her while he looked at floor. '_ Cute,' _she thought, knowing Alisha would agree._

 _..._

 _Later that night, everyone around her was shouting (Ten! Tack! Are you alright?! Matt, how the fuck could you hit a girl?! Holy shit, Ten, I'm_ so _sorry_ ). _But in the midst of all the madness, Ten was in the eye of the hurricane, blocking out the chaos like white noise. There was only one thing her mind could focus on: She had seen the future, and then she changed it._

 _..._

 _She returned to the present to discover Steve shaking his head in disbelief as he ran a finger over Ten's tattoo. It was like he was trying to make sure that it was real. That she was real._

 _..._

 _Papa's grip tightened around Ten's arm. "You can come with me, or I can have Harrington killed."_

 _"I'll go with you, Papa," Ten made her decision before he finished his sentence._

…

 _Steve kissed her slowly and lightly, as if he wanted it to last but feared she would disappear entirely if he went any deeper._

 _..._

" _You can be my niece!" Joyce shouted in the midst of an epiphany while she, Ten, Steve, and Hop were trying to figure out a fake backstory and pseudonym for Ten and her forged documents. "We'll make you Rose Byers. How does that sound?"_

…

 _Ten could not read what the sign said, but she knew what it meant. The house she had seen in her future vision was for sale. "Are you coming?" she asked Steve with a giggle on her way out of the car._

…

 _Nightmare: The baby cried out in the distance, so Ten ran in the direction of the sound, leading her to the doors at the back of the church. No matter how hard she pushed and pulled, the doors never budged and the baby's cries grew louder. Suddenly, the lights in the church began turning off one by one until it was completely dark. Until she was surrounded by nothing but black._

…

 _Nightmare: "She has your eyes, Ten," Papa's voice repeated for the last time before she could not take it anymore. Covering her ears with her hands, she let a piercing scream rip through her throat. And then the light finally burst._

 _Everything went black._

" _Nine! Nine! Nine!" she screamed. She felt Steve shift next to her. She heard the click of the lamp. She had woken up, but the nightmare never ended. She was stuck in the black. Deep and dark and endless._

* * *

Nine released her sisters hand, stricken upon recognizing the scream from the night she went into the Void. And then the realization hit her like a ton of bricks.

" _You see, Nine, part of what your Papa was studying was your connection to your sister,"_ the doctor had said. " _It seems you two_ share _one power between each other rather than having two similar, but separate, abilities."_

"There's more," said Ten, but Nine's mind was elsewhere.  
"You can't see because of me," said Nine out loud.

The entire car fell silent, any conversation between Nancy and Jonathan and Eleven ceased. Nancy and Eleven turned to stare at Nine, and Jonathan glanced at her briefly through the rearview mirror before turning his attention back to the road.

Ten's brows drew together and the expression on her face told Nine that she was crazy.

"It's true," said Nine.  
"How?" asked Ten and Eleven simultaneously.  
"We share one power," said Nine, projecting to her what the doctor had said for emphasis. "I have it all."  
"But what does that have to do with me being _blind_?" asked Ten.  
"The nightmares were right," mumbled Nine with a shrug.  
"What nightmares?" asked Eleven.

Ten huffed and went on to explain to Eleven what she had dreamt about. First she described the one with Nine in the mirror and the burst of light before the black. Then she went on to tell her of Papa giving her the baby, and how it screamed but she could not get to it.

"If you're right, then my non-existent baby would have to be the reason I'm bind, too," Ten was quick to add.  
"Nine's the baby," said Nancy, almost to herself but not quite.  
"What?" asked everyone else in the car.  
"Nine's the baby," Nancy said louder this time. "We had a whole lesson on dream interpretation in my psychology course. Babies are supposed to represent the innocent, and usually it's the innocent part of yourself, but in this case it could be Nine. She's innocent because she's never been in the real world before. Not only that, but she died and came back. She was _reborn_. And maybe the doors being locked represented a part of you, Rose, that knew she was still out there but couldn't get to her. And then the lights went out? Rose, what if your subconscious was seeing your own future and showing you in a way that wasn't too harsh?"

Ten sat in silence for a moment, her face an expression Nine did not recognize. There was part of her that was still a stranger. Nine chose not to dwell on it for the time being and glanced back and forth between Nancy and Ten.

"I think you're reading too far into this. I've always had weird dreams," said Ten.  
"I think she's right, Ten," said Nine.  
"If you are right, if you did take her sight, then there must be a way to for her to get it back. Right?" offered Jonathan.

Nine shrugged.

"If it happened when you took her powers, then maybe you just have to _give_ it back," said Nancy.  
"I wouldn't know how," admitted Nine.  
"She'd have to take it," said Eleven.  
"What?" asked Ten.  
"If she took it from you, it would make sense for you to have to take it back from her."  
"I wouldn't know how," said Ten.  
"I think I do," said Eleven.

* * *

They wasted no time. Eleven had an idea and she was going to execute it in the car on the way to Illinois. "It's a long drive. What else are we supposed to do?" she reasoned. Jonathan joked that there was no time like the present.

Eleven had Ten take Nancy's hand, then instructed her to think of something that makes her angry.

"Nothing makes me _angry_ ," protested Ten.  
"Nancy should," said Eleven.  
"What?" asked both Nancy and Ten.  
"Nancy should make you jealous. Angry," said Eleven.  
"Because I dated Steve," said Nancy, though the statement sounded like a question.  
"Yes," said Eleven.  
"But I didn't know Steve then," argued Ten.  
"That doesn't matter. You're supposed to be jealous," said Eleven.  
"I'm not," said Ten.  
"But she broke his heart," said Eleven.

Ten frowned, looking more saddened than anything else. Not angry. Eleven huffed before trying a different angle, one Nine could tell was causing the younger girl to put herself on edge. She ordered Nancy to focus on a specific memory for Ten to see. After a deep breath, her words came like continuous punches to the gut.

"Think about Papa," instructed Eleven.

Ten closed her eyes and focused, but her face showed no signs of anger. Not yet.

"Remember how he kept you and Nine. Remember your room. And the cold. Remember the tests and the punishments. The isolation chamber. How he called himself your father, but he trained you to be weapons. For what? To make sure the enemies were telling the truth? To stay one step ahead of them?"

Nine wanted to tune Eleven out. There was a time when Nine had loved Papa. Part of her still did. But Eleven's words of resentment toward the man reminded Nine of why she and Ten needed to escape in the first place, and so she could not stop listening.

"And then he tracked me down. He followed Mike to Steve and found both of us. He wanted to bring us back."

Ten's eyes opened, staring emptily ahead, and her brows drew together but the rest of her expression remained slack as she gripped onto Nacy. Eleven was getting herself so worked up that the stereo began flipping through channels seemingly on its own.

"He threatened Steve if you didn't go with him. He _hurt_ Steve. Remember how much pain he was in after the bad man shot him? And Papa asked you about Nine as if he didn't know she was alive. As if he hadn't brought her back. As if he hadn't been keeping her hidden? He _lied_ and he _hurt_ and he -"

The next few moments happened all at once, but Nine felt as if she were living them in slow motion: A sharp intake of breath. Ten's. Something flashed so briefly behind her eyes. " _Jonathan,_ " she shouted at the exact moment her nose began bleeding. Gushing. The cry of his name caused him to slam on his breaks and look back at her through his rearview mirror. "Jonathan!" someone else - Nancy? - yelled as the breaks began to skid on the frosted road.

Counterclockwise, the car fistialed, and they found themselves going entirely sideways. But car came to a halt suddenly and all too soon, jostling everyone as Eleven screamed, having been the one to stop it. The windows burst with the sound as blood dripped from the younger girl's nose and ears.

Just as Nine thought the moment was coming to an end, the car travelling behind them collided into their own.

* * *

 **A/N: First of all: Happy 2018! I hope you all had a fun and safe New Years.**

 **This chapter was so much fun for me to write! Especially getting into Ten's memories, I got a little carried away and had to cut a bunch of them out because it was just too much. Hopefully I was able to give a little more insight on Ten's dynamic with Yaya and Alisha, and can promise more information on her friendship with Tack in later chapters (hint, hint).**

 **I also wanted to give Nancy a little what-I-learned-in-college moment, as well as give El a little what-I-learned-from-Kali moment, which were also super fun to get into. I hope you enjoyed! I'll be back on Wednesday with a chapter from Steve's POV.**


	15. The Mission

_STEVE_ / The Mission

First order of business: the body of June Fletcher.

It felt super fucked up and disrespectful to continue keeping her in Steve's bathtub, so as soon as Jonathan and Nancy left with Rose and Nine and Jane, Hopper wasted no time coming up with a plan.

Sorting things out turned out to be much easier than expected. In October of 1984, she had taken a trip to the Upside Down and her brother, Alex Fletcher, had reported her missing in Ameswood, the next town over. Except June had not had a mother like Joyce Byers, and the police there had brushed the whole thing off, telling her brother that she had most likely run off to find her long lost dad. When the employees of Hawkins Lab had found her in the alternate dimension's version of Benny's Diner, no reports were filed claiming she had been found.

So, Hopper had easily been able to bring the body to the morgue, put her in the right hands, and tell them he suspected it was the missing Ameswood girl. But first, with the help of Jonathan Byers, he tracked down her brother. He explained everything to Alex Fletcher over the phone, and then asked him what he knew.

According to Alex, he was seventeen when his mother died in July of 1984, and his sister, Junie, was just eleven. He dropped out of Hawkins High School - where he was friendly with Jonathan Byers - and began working odd jobs to support himself and his sister. They lived out of his car, because they agreed that it was better than foster care, and switched June to the school in Ameswood after some Hawkins kids started bullying her for being homeless.

He had told Hopper that she always waited in the car for him to get out of work. But one night in October of 1984, she was just gone. He searched all over town for her, and when he realized the police were not about to do anything, he single-handedly searched through the entire county, desperate to find her.

She had been missing for two weeks to the day when Alex was cornered by 'Hawkins Power and Light' vans. They took him to the lab, and to his sister. They released her from their care under the condition that she return to them for any and all future medical services. He even signed a contract that, if broken, gave the lab permission to destroy his entire life.

Just over six months later, in May of 1985, June turned twelve on the twelfth. She got sick that day, and coughed up a slug just before she coughed up blood. A lot of blood. By that point, Hawkins Lab had shut down entirely but the contract was still valid, so he raced her to the care of Doctor Owens, who he thought he could trust.

Owens told Alex that June needed to be quarantined for the time being, but that he would call as soon as she was okay to see. But he never did. Though Alex never gave up hope, he kept his distance, knowing he was more useful to his sister alive and working than dead thanks to their contracts. And little did Alex know Owens' true intentions.

Hopper was quick to assure Alex that he would find that son-of-a-bitch and get June the justice she deserved.

* * *

For Hopper, finding where Owens lived was surprisingly easy. All things considered, he would have thought the man would have been smart enough to use a fake name or own a house off of the grid, but instead he opted to hide in plain sight.

They left early the next morning. Hopper decided to let Steve come along after Nine had shown him the two visions she had seen, but still no one had told Steve what had happened in them. But if there was anyone Steve trusted with his life, it was Rose, and if there was anyone Rose trusted with her life, it was Nine. So Steve went and found it best not to ask any more questions.

Hopper pulled into the long driveway. The house was set far back from the street and surrounded by trees, giving an illusion of remoteness. It was a small, single-story home with a large bay window and a weathered blue exterior. The blinds were drawn and the vibe was eerie.

Steve opened the door to step out onto the frosted driveway, but was stopped short by Hopper, who presented him with a gun. "Safety on… safety off," he demonstrated. "Point. Squeeze. Got it?"

Steve nodded and tucked the weapon in the waistband of his jeans, the way he had seen in movies. The two men approached the house and tried the front door first, but it was locked.

"How did they get out if the door's locked?" Steve asked.

"There must be a back door… or maybe they crawled through a window. They're both small enough." Hop said as he bounced back down the front steps and around the side of the house. Steve followed.

They found every window to be closed, but the sliding glass back door was wide open.

Hopper chuckled to himself shortly and withdrew his own weapon from its holster. "Easy enough."

Steve followed suit, clicking the safety of his gun off and pretending to know what he was doing. He followed Hopper as he tiptoed inside the house.

They found themselves in the kitchen, which was kept mostly bare. The counters were clear of clutter and the glass cabinets did not hold much. The picture of a dog held with a magnet to the fridge was seemingly out of place among the bare bones of the rest of the home.

It was silent. Too silent. The only exception being the ticking of the clock on the wall and the measured breaths of Steve and Hopper.

Steve noticed a file sitting on the kitchen table, similar to Rose's medical one, and he immediately went to investigate.

"Anything?" Hop whispered as Steve flipped the folder open.

"Taxes," Steve was disappointed to discover.

Hop grumbled and continued moving through the room, remembering what Dustin had said Nine showed him about a basement. Off of the kitchen, there were two doors and an entryway leading to a hallway. The chief tried the first door: a bathroom. Then the next: locked.

" _She fucking knocked him out and took his keys. They ran and June locked Owens in the basement,"_ Steve remembered Dustin saying. Hop did too, and gave Steve a knowing look as he reached for his belt where he had clipped the keys Nine had handed him the day prior.

Hopper flipped through his labeled options, trying the one labeled 'Basement' first. It worked.

The bolt clicked as it unlocked and the heavy door creaked as Hopper opened it. "The door locks from both sides," Hopper noted to himself before descending the staircase.

They found themselves in a short, white hallway, clearly designed to look like a hospital or lab. The floors were white linoleum and four doors lined the hall, two of which were ajar. Steve checked the first open one. It was set up exactly like a small hospital room. Nothing seemed out of place except for a stack of textbooks set on a table, with 'JUNE' written in bubble letters across one of the paper bag covers. An pen and some doodle-covered pages were sprawled out next to it. Heart monitors were dangled from the unmade bed. The machine beeped continuously as if someone had flatlined. The air in the room felt haunted, but for some reason Steve could not look away.

"Steve," Hopper called, pulling him from his trance. Steve turned away from the disturbing room and looked to the chief, who nodded toward the floor of the other open room across the hall.

The second room looked like a prison cell. It was small, with a cot in one corner and a bathroom in the other. Other than that, the room was mostly bare. A half-conscious Doctor Owens lay at the foot of the bed, not too far from a steel food tray that was now bent out of shape. Steve would be lying if he said he was not amused by the idea of someone as small as Nine putting every last ounce of her strength into whacking Doctor Owens unconscious with a tray.

Apparently Hop was amused by the same idea, too. "She got you pretty good, huh?" he chuckled before turning to Steve. "Help me tie him up."

* * *

The room labeled "Office" was complete with an island of a desk and lined with filing cabinets, each labeled. He had entire cabinets for W. Byers and J. Fletcher. Another cabinet was presumably for other kids who had been taken to the Upside Down (or as Owners seemed to label it 'The Nether'), Steve noting a drawer for B. Holland. A section of filing cabinets were dedicated to Hawkins Lab, another to the Nether itself, and another to MKUltra.

One entire wall was dedicated to the numbers. 001 though 008 along with 012 and 013 were alloted two drawers each. 011 had an entire cabinet. 009 had two, with one drawer labeled 'Tug of War.'

Between 009 and 011's, Steve found a set of drawers for 010. The top drawer was labeled '1965 - 1975,' which was followed by '1975 - 1985'. The third was labeled 'S. Harrington' and if Steve had not been so focused on everything else, he would have found it extraordinarily unsettling. As soon as he discovered Owens had been keeping Nine, Steve had a sneaking suspicion that he had been keeping a distant eye on Rose, too, but he had never considered the possibility of being watched himself.

Similar to her sister, the fourth drawer in the filing cabinet known as '010' was labeled 'Tug of War'. Steve had absolutely no idea what that meant, but he was flooded with the overwhelming need to find out. He pulled the handle, but the drawer did not give. Locked. Of course. He tried all four drawers anyways before trying all of Jane's, to no avail. They were all locked.

"Fuck," he cursed, kicking the set of steel drawers.

"No need to go looking for answers," Owens told Steve weakly from where he was tied to his office chair. "I'll tell you whatever it is you want to know, just put the guns down."

Steve looked to Hop, who sat perched on the corner of the desk. The chief placed his gun on the surface of the desk next to him, and Steve took it as a note to tuck his back into the waistband of his jeans.

"Okay," Hopper started. "We'll start off easy. Why were you keeping two girls in your basement?"

"Research," Owens answered simply. Steve and Hop shared a glance, but after a beat the man continued. "Hawkins Lab was Brenner's life work. First it was MKUltra, then it was the children of those subjects," he gestured to the wall of drawers behind Steve, referring to 001 through 013. "He was not going to let it all go to waste so easily."

"Brenner's trying to reopen Hawkins Lab," Hopper stated, though it came out like a question.

"Ideally, yes," Owens confirmed. "At the very least continue what he started. He offered me a large sum of money to set this all up and continue to work under him."

"Why Nine and why June specifically?"

Owens smiled at the chief and it took a great deal of strength for Steve not to punch the smug expression off of the old man's face. "With June, her brother came knocking on my door needing my help. It was almost too easy. She was connected to the Nether - the Upside Down as Eleven and Will Byers like to call it - and I could study it through her. I sent the brother away knowing no one else would be looking for her. No one else _cared_ about her… As for Nine, she is my proudest work. Brenner knew how fascinated I was by the twins. He assigned me to Nine long before she woke up from her coma, and long before you arrested Brenner."

"Your proudest work?" Steve echoed.

"What did you do to her?" Hopper asked.

"If you've found me, then I'm sure you've seen by now… She's reached her full potential because of me."

"Meaning she can see both the past and the future now?" Hopper pressed.

"She can see everything! Past, present, and future. She can go into the Void, much like Eleven, though we were still working on perfecting it. She can project her visions onto others, or even push them away entirely if she doesn't want to see them. In the lab, Ten was the only one who was able to do the latter."

"You know why Rose is blind," Steve suddenly realized out loud at the mention of her. "Don't you?"

* * *

 **A/N: This was originally one mega long chapter that I ended up splitting into two shorter parts. So why not end it on a bit of a cliffhanger? To be continued...**


	16. The Mission (cont)

**A/N: Part two of this chapter with Doctor Owens! Like I said before, this was originally one super long chapter that I cut in half. This was so much fun to write, so I hope you enjoy! Thank you for all the support! xx**

* * *

 _STEVE /_ The Mission (cont.)

"You know why Rose is blind," Steve suddenly realized out loud at the mention of her. "Don't you?"

Owens blinked at Steve a few times, calculating his words. "Ten is magnificent. She always has been," he started, avoiding the direct question. "I've always been so captivated by the twins, because unlike the others, their power is completely internal. Eleven can move objects and Twelve can control the elements. Eight can muster realistic illusions and Seven can manipulate the cells of living organisms. However, Nine and Ten… they just see things for what they are. They can't change them, shape them. I took it upon myself to figure out what exactly it was they can control externally... But I'm getting ahead of myself now. To answer your question, Steve, I will start by asking _you_ a question. Do you know how identical twins are made?"

Steve was getting more and more agitated with every word this man spoke, so when he opened his mouth he surprised himself with how calm his words came out. "How is this relevant?"

"That would be a no," Owens said with a nod. "In layman's terms, identical twins happen when one fertilized egg splits into two. What was once one child becomes two, both possessing the same genetic information. What was once one power had to be balanced between two beings: Nine and Ten.

"Their whole lives have been a game of tug of war that they did not even know they were playing," Owens continued. Tug of War. Steve looked to the two drawers labeled as such behind him. "Brenner kept them so carefully balanced, but Ten was always pulling on the rope, if you will, just a bit harder.

"It is a common pattern in twins for the older one to be more dominant, and for them it was true. Ten went along with whatever Nine said, but it did not stop her from finding her own dominance elsewhere. Nine could just see the future. It was as simple as that. However, not only could Ten see the past, but her nightmares held her own premonitions, she had taught herself to push the visions away, and she held the external manipulation - the 'Siren Song' as Brenner liked to call it. And when Nine was in a coma, Ten's powers started to grow stronger naturally. The 'rope' gave way to her without her needing to try, because her sister could not pull the other side. It was not until Nine was alive and well and in my care that she truly started pulling on the rope back."

"What the hell is a siren song?" Hopper grumbled to himself.

"So let me get this straight," Steve started. "Two girls. They share one power, but you made it so Nine is hogging all of it, and because of that Rose is _blind_?"

Owens sighed and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, though his restrains did not get him very far. "Though I do have my theories, I do not know _exactly_ why Ten is completely blind, as we've never dealt with one of them having all of the power before. Which is why I would have loved to monitor her here to figure it out, but I am certain it has to do with Nine. I'd say that if Ten starts pulling back harder, if she tries to find that balance again, then her sight will come back to her. However, she has to truly _want_ it. And I don't think she wants her abilities back as much as Nine wants to keep them… Not to mention, like I said, Ten will end up going along with whatever Nine wants."

"You think she doesn't want her sight back?" Hop asked. If Steve did not know him any better, he would have thought Hopper seemed unusually calm given the situation, but he knew that inside the chief was fuming.

"Her sight, yes. Her powers, no. But my hypothesis is that they go hand in hand. I have a full psychological report on it in there," Owens said with a nod of the head toward the '010' filing cabinet. "I have _many_ psychological reports for Ten, actually, she is a very interesting case. You have the keys, don't you, Jim?"

Referring to Rose as an ' _interesting case_ ' made Steve's blood boil, but he tried to distract himself by focusing on the task at hand. Hop tossed him Owens' keys and he turned to the filing cabinet behind him. "Which drawer?"

"Everything in relation to her sister will be in the drawer labeled 'Tug of War'. Everything in relation to you as well as everything to do with her manipulation will be in the 'S. Harrington' drawer. Everything else - if you want to know about day to day life, depression, nightmares, plants, etcetera - will be in the top two drawers, organized chronologically."

The drawer with his name on it interested Steve the most, but he figured it was because he wanted to know what it said about him. He ignored the initial impulse and flipped through to find the 'Files' key, unlocking the 'Tug of War' drawer in hopes to find something that would help him help Rose.

The drawer was stuffed with manila envelopes just like the medical one Steve had.

"It should be one of the very last," Owens told him. Sure enough, in the very back there was a folder with a blue sticker on the tab next to black scrawl that read '010: Vision Loss - Nov. 1985'

Steve pulled it and threw it on the floor next to him. He sifted through the rest of the drawer, pulling other files that may prove to be useful, while Hop continued to press Owens.

"So this siren, manipulation thing… What does it have to do with Steve?" the chief asked.

"Ah, yes, her 'Siren Song'. What doesn't it have to do with Steve?" Owens started, the pride and excitement of his scientific discovery evident in his voice. "I already told you how I was trying to find whatever external factors the twins can manipulate. Well, I found the answer in myself when I realized it was the mind. And then I discovered quickly after that it was only in Ten and the slight off-balance she had created in their tug of war… So, do tell me, Steve, did you feel _drawn_ to Ten initially? Did it feel almost like a physical pull toward her?"

 _She was not just_ pretty, _and immediately Steve knew it was not just a passing attraction. He felt drawn to her as if she were magnetic._

Steve stopped what he was doing and clenched his jaw shut tight at the memory. He did not want to give in and tell Owens the truth. He did not want to give the doctor the satisfaction of being right. Of potentially _knowing_ something about his relationship that Steve did not.

"Did you ever wonder why the other men around you were instantly and unanimously attracted to her, too? Or at the very least, were they overly trusting of her right off the bat?"

" _Damn… the things I would do to that girl," Nate deadpanned._

 _She smiled at Dustin who, when Steve turned to face him, continued to stare._

" _Let me talk to her. If Jane wants to meet you, she can," Hop said much sooner than Steve would have expected from the overprotective father._

"Or even the women in her life. Did they bond with her deeply and instantly?"

" _Sister," Jane announced softly. Beaming, she wrapped her arms around Ten's waist in a hug._

 _Joyce helped as much as she could, coming over after work and taking care of Rose as if she were Will or Jonathan._

"I'll bet, for whatever reason, you're not even a little bit physically attracted to Nine, even though she and Ten are _identical_. Two halves to the same whole, even. But why?"

 _He could not bring himself to look up at her. She just looked_ so _much like Rose. But not quite. So close to being identical, yet slightly and distressingly off, and that was his issue._

"Shut up," Steve involuntarily mumbled to himself like the mature young man he was.

"She doesn't even realize she does it! There was something about her ability that allowed people to be drawn to her naturally. I, myself, felt drawn to her back when I first started at Hawkins Lab. Much like a siren, she is able to _pull_ people in, draw them toward her, just close enough to use their own mind, their own memories, against them. She was built and trained to draw people in and make them weak, whether it be the enemy or you, Steve..."

 _He heard himself begin talking, though he could not remember what he was even saying. She lifted her head and opened her eyes to look at him, and he felt his heart drop to his stomach._

 _He reminded himself that Rose had him flustered. That everything they did was always backwards._

"But she fell in love with you instead, and that simply fascinates me. You give into her so easily without even realizing that you don't have a choice -"

Steve was having a hard time maintaining his composure. Every word Owens spoke, pretending he knew Rose better than anyone, fed into Steve's overwhelming rage and his anger threatened to bubble over. He slammed the steel drawer shut, quickly moving on to the 'S. Harrington' drawer above it.

It was filled to the back with files, mostly on Steve in relation to Rose. Words like _attraction_ and _manipulation_ were frequent among others Steve did not know the meaning of. Maybe he should have payed more attention in high school English class. In the very front were files on many of the other people in Rose's life.

Steve first saw names he recognized: Joyce Byers, Jim Hopper, and every member of the party each got one of their own. Dustin Henderson and Jane '011' Hopper both had quite a few. The names he did not recognize stood out second: first he saw a couple labeled Jessa Torrez. Then he noticed that some guy named Joshua Ko, whoever the fuck that was, had his name on a decent handful. It was not until he noticed the name Alisha Carter pop up that Steve put two and two together, realizing Joshua must be Tack and Jessa must be Yaya, and he wondered why he had never been curious about their real names before (Or thought anything at all past, ' _Wow, they have really weird nicknames')._ But more importantly, Steve wondered, how long had Brenner and then Owens been watching Rose?

Owens continued talking. Steve wanted so desperately to tune him out, but he could not. His ears kept listening and the heat in his chest kept rising. "But Ten… she _does_ have a choice. She has been given, just like all of the other numbers, a great capacity for evil. And yet she uses it for good. She _chooses_ good. She was created and trained to lure in the enemy and use their own mind to destroy them. Instead, she drew in people like you and Josh Ko and Dustin Henderson, and instead of destroying you all, she saw who you all were and chose to love you for it; platonic or otherwise. She cared and empathised and connected. She is such an incredible case and I would truly love to see if -"

"Listen, pal," Steve finally snapped, cutting him off and crossing the room in just a few short strides and getting in the old man's face. His words began coming up like vomit and once Steve started, he found it hard to stop. "You don't know the first fucking thing about me, and you sure as hell don't know Rose, either. Because those files over there - those aren't her. Sure, you can watch every move she's made for twenty years and 'analyze' it somewhere in that fucked-up brain of yours, but you don't know her like you think you do. Like you _wish_ you could. And I don't know if you see them as numbers on a page or lab rats in a maze or the leading ladies in whatever fucked up fantasy you've got going on, Mr. Nine's-my-proudest-work-and-I'm-drawn-to-Ten-too, but they are _people._ They care and empathise and connect because they are fucking people. People _you_ kept in a goddamn box to poke and prod and write an excessive amount of files on, as if it actually means anything. And until you get that idea through your goddamn head, you can't even _begin_ to understand who _Rose_ is. Or Jane. Or Nine, or even June."

Owens looked completely unfazed, and it made Steve want to hit him even more than before. "How is June?" he asked after a moment in a cold monotone. "I hope you realize how sick she is before it's too late."

Steve swallowed the hard lump in his throat. It was a miracle his face was able to maintain composure. How did Nine live like this? "You don't get to ask questions," Steve finally spat.

"Sorry, son, but I don't think you're the one in charge here," Owens said to Steve as he looked past him to Hopper.

"The kid is right," Hopper said to Owens. "About all of it. But I'll tell you what you want to know about June if you answer one last question for me."

Steve backed off, allowing space for Hopper, still perched on the corner of the desk, to talk with Owens, still tied to his office chair.

"What's your motive, Sam? Why give into our questions so easily?"

Owens thought out his words carefully before he spoke them. "Well... This is clearly the end of the road for me, Hop. And now that Nine's out in the world, it's a mess I won't be able to fix. Like I said, Nine has great power, but Ten is the one who will use it for good. You have to get it back to her... But then again, what do I know?" he looked to Steve and raised a smug brow. "Right?"

Steve imagined a hundred different scenarios, all beginning with swinging a fist at Owens' face.

Hopper quickly interrupted these fantasies. "June's dead, Owens," he informed the evil man coldly through his own burning internal rage. He hopped down from the desk and pulled out a pocket knife. He began cutting the restrains, starting with his feet. "Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. She died yesterday. Coughed up a lot of blood. I tried to revive her but it was too late. And now her brother, Alex, is eighteen years old and has no one. Absolutely no one. But you can discuss that with him in court." He moved to the restraint of his right arm. "You are under arrest for the kidnapping and endangerment of June Fletcher, and there's enough evidence in here to put your ass away for a long time." He pulled Owens's free arm around his back, then with his free hand began cutting the other restraint. "You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law -"

The next moments happened in a matter of seconds, but Steve felt like he was watching in slow motion:

Hopper moved to wrangle Owens' now free left hand behind his back as Hop continued to read off his Miranda Rights. Owens' arm wrestled its way out of Hopper's grasp, reaching for the gun the chief had stupidly left on the corner of the desk.

Hopper released Owens' other arm to grab the gun from him, and suddenly four hands were fighting for the weapon.

The gun went off, and Steve's memory flashed back at the loud sound.

 _Steve had always had a short temper, but this time he was literally seeing red._

 _"They are not people," Brenner continued to condescend whatever bullshit he was on about Jane and Rose. "They are not anything but weapons, or numbers on a spreadsheet, or -"_

 _Steve's blood finally boiled over. Next thing he knew, he was throwing a fist in Brenner's face. Big mistake._

 _The crack of his nose. The loud bang of a gun. The floor gave out. A distant throbbing, numb and hot and red, just before the excruciating pain set in. Ears ringing. Someone screaming, but who?_

He returned from his flashback to discover the two men diving across the floor for the gun. In that moment, Steve knew this was the reason Nine had insisted he come. But he had to act fast.

He pulled the gun from the back of his pants. Safety off. Point. Squeeze.

* * *

"Deja vu, huh?" Hopper commented to Owens dryly, using his belt as a tourniquet for the bullet wound to Owens' leg.

Owens, in the unbearable yet entirely deserved pain Steve remembered all too well, grumbled a short, incoherent response.

Steve finally got the courage to ask the question that was echoing over and over in his mind. "You were supposed to die today if I wasn't here. Weren't you, Hop?"

Hop tightened his belt around Owens' thigh, and the older man groaned in agony. The chief sighed before answering Steve's question with a question. "Is there any other way I would have let you come, kid?"

* * *

Back in the Blazer, the radio blared a constant stream of tinny signals. " _Hop! Hopper! You have a_ _thousand_ _missed calls from Joyce Byers, she says that it's about the kids - Jane - and it's an emergency. Pick up, Hop. For the love of God pick up -"_

Hop and Steve froze at the words, immediately expecting the worst and exchanging a terrified glance.

After seconds or minutes frozen in fear, the chief moved to answer the call. "This is Hop. What happened?" he asked the person on the other end of the signal. Steve realized it was the first time he ever truly heard fear in the chief's words.


	17. Broken Glass & Endless Skies

**A/N: Thank you so much for all of your support and kind words. I'm really glad you liked the last chapter. Sadly, we are nearing the end (three or four more chapters, including this one), but I can't thank you enough for making it this far with me.**

* * *

 _NINE_ / Broken Glass & Endless Skies

"I tried to stop it… I tried…" said Eleven in between sobs.

"Jonathan! Jonathan, can you hear me? Jonathan, please," begged Nancy.

Nine took Ten's hand and saw nothing. But she was not gone. Not like June. Her chest still moved slowly up and down though she would not wake up. After their attempt at a balancing act, blood dripped out continuously from her nose, and after the windows shattered, she was left with a deep laceration of her forehead. But she was not gone. Not like June. At least not yet.

" _It's dangerous,"_ June had told Nine about the roads before. " _They won't s-stop for you."_

But was this what she could have meant?

Nine felt like she needed to get out of that car, and to drag Ten with her. But they were sandwiched between a crushed door and another vehicle on Ten's side and a blubbering Eleven and oncoming traffic on Nine's.

The operator of the other car exited his own crushed vehicle, still crumpled up against their own, and approached Nancy's window.

"Is everyone okay?" he asked.

"I-I-I don't know," said Nancy, coaxing Jonathan and then looking back toward Ten. "I don't know."

Another woman ran towards them from a maroon car that had pulled over to the other side of the road.

"Is everyone okay?" she asked.

"We don't know," answered the man.

"Find a phone! Call 911," she shouted in the direction of her car.

An older man in her passenger seat slid over and started her vehicle, taking off down the road to find help. The woman turned back to Nancy, opening her door.

"My name is Susan Cobb, I'm a nurse. I'm going to do the best I can to help your friends, here. Can you tell me your names?" said the woman calmly.

"I-I'm Nancy Wheeler. This is Jonathan Byers, and that's R-Rose. Rose Byers," said a shaking Nancy.

"Siblings?" the woman asked, looking between the two unconscious passengers.

"Cousins," lied Nancy smoothy, even in their given situation.

The nurse worked quickly, ordering the man from the car that hit theirs to help Nancy and Eleven and Nine out of the car and onto the grassy area by the road. From where she stood, Nine watched the broken glass on the pavement sparkle in the headlights and listened to the woman repeating her words to Jonathan and Ten.

"Jonathan, can you hear me? Jonathan, my name is Susan Cobb. I'm a nurse," she had said.

"Rose, it looks like you hit your head pretty hard. Can you hear me?" she had asked.

The man started asking the three girls questions. Nancy did all of the talking.

"Are you hurt?" the man asked.

"Not terribly," said Nancy.

"Are you sure?" the man asked, raising an eyebrow at the drying blood from Eleven's nose and ears.

"I'm sure," said Eleven.

"We're sure," confirmed Nancy.

"What the hell happened?" he asked.

"I-I don't know… I don't know," said Nancy.

Nine looked between the two girls with her. Eleven had stopped sobbing, but her tears still came. Nancy was still shaking, and Nine knew it was not from the cold.

"Nancy's okay, she's right over here. Can you tell me -" they heard the nurse start from inside of the car.

"Jonathan?" breathed Nancy, and she raced over to the vehicle.

"See, she's right here," said the nurse.

"Jonathan," sobbed Nancy.

"You're going to be, okay," said the nurse to Jonathan inside the car.

Jonathan had woken up. But Ten had not. Why? Why? Why?

* * *

The ambulances came and took Jonathan and Ten away. The nurse - Susan Cobb - drove the three girls to the hospital in the city. It was there that they waited and waited and waited.

A different nurse in yellow scrubs and powder blue gloves came and took Nine away in order to suck some of the blood from her veins to give to her sister. She did not know why they needed it or how they would put it in Ten, but Nine complied anyways. It was a terrifying thought, so they let her bring Eleven, and afterwards they gave her a snack.

"What's your name?" asked the new nurse.

"Ni -" started Nine.

"Nia," finished Eleven quickly. "And I'm Jane."

"Do you have anyone you can call?" the new nurse asked.

"My dad," said Eleven.

They went back out to the waiting room where Eleven called home but no one answered, so she tried Jonathan's mom. Then, they waited and waited and waited. Eventually, a third nurse came by with news that she tried to share with Nine, sister to Ten and therefore fake cousin to Jonathan, but Nine did not understand a word of it.

"She doesn't speak much English," Nancy tried to explain.

Nancy told the nurse that Joyce - Jonathan's mom and Ten's fake aunt - would be there soon. The nurse nodded, gave up, and walked away.

They spent the rest of the night in the uncomfortable chairs of the waiting area, though none of them actually slept. And early the next morning, three people around Nine's age came racing into the waiting area. Two girls and a boy. They stopped short when they saw Nine, mouths hanging open.

"Shit," one of the girls said.

"Woah," said the boy.

Tiny but tough Nancy stood as they crossed the waiting area. None of the three took their eyes off of Nine and she instinctively sank back in her seat.

"Can I help you?" asked Nancy.

"Yeah… Steve called us. Are you Nancy?" asked the second girl.

"Steve? Steve Harrington?" asked Nancy crossing her arms over her chest.

"Probaby. I dunno… _Steve._ You know him?" said the first girl.

"Yes, but how do _you_ know him?" asked Nancy.

"We're Rose's friends," said the first girl.

The recognition hit Nine then. She knew them from Ten's memories. Tack, the boy with the wide smile and black layers and a backpack he seemed to never take off. Alisha, the girl with deep skin and a warm heart and dark hair worked into a pile on top of her head. Yaya, the girl with unruly curls and spunky attitude and the ability to speak in more than just English. Ten's friends. The ones who had saved her.

"Nancy," said Nine.

She grabbed Nancy's sleeve and gently pulled her back down into the chair next to her. She studied the three people standing before her, their faces so familiar to her as if she had lived those memories herself. Her face so familiar to them, as she looked exactly like Ten had when they first found her.

"Um… I'm Alisha," said Alisha, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"I'm Tack," said Tack.

"Yaya," said Yaya.

"Nine," said Nine.

"This is fucking crazy…" muttered Tack.

"How is she?" asked Alisha.

"We don't know. We're not family, they won't tell us," said Nancy.

"But she is," said Yaya, pointing to Nine.

"She doesn't understand," said Eleven.

The three of them - Tack and Yaya and Alisha - looked to Eleven, sitting on the other side of Nancy, as if they had not noticed she had been there.

"Who are you?" asked Tack.

"El," said Eleven.

"You know Ten, too?" asked Alisha.

Eleven did not reply. Instead, she rolled up her left sleeve and presented them with a tattoo that read 011, as if to prove she had a deeper connection to Ten than any of them could ever fathom. Which she did. The tattoo was small, but the origin was heavy. Seeing it on someone who was not their friend, let alone a fourteen-year-old, had the right affect.

"Damn," said Yaya.

"Sister. You're the sister Ten was talking about? The little one?" asked Tack.

"Yes," said Eleven, rolling her sleeve back down.

"You must have one, too," said Yaya to Nine.

Nine showed them the 009 inked on her wrist. They looked at it before looking to her face again. Then Alisha looked to Nancy with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't have one," said Nancy, raising her hands in surrender.

"This is fucked," said Tack.

"Definitely," said Yaya, plopping down in the chair next to Nine.

* * *

Yaya was nice. She communicated in a way that was easy for Nine to follow. She told her stories of Ten and did not ask a lot of questions or make a big deal out of the fact that Nine was alive past her initial reaction.

For the first time in her life, Nine felt a spike of jealousy. So many people cared so deeply for her sister, and Nine wondered if she would ever find that, too.

* * *

Steve arrived with Joyce and Hopper early that afternoon. Eleven ran to her adoptive father and he scooped her up into a hug.

"You're okay, kid. You scared the shit out of me, but you're okay," said Hop.

"I tried to stop it. I tried but I couldn't. It's my fault." said Eleven.

Joyce ran over to Nancy and Nine and scooped the girls into a group hug. When she pulled away, Steve briefly hugged Nine, though Nine still did not understand the concept of hugging people back. Next, he hugged Nancy.

"I'm glad you're okay, Nance," he told her before pulling away.

"Me too," said Nancy.

Then Nine watched as he greeted Ten's friends. He shared a smile with Yaya before Tack offered his hand to shake. Alisha stood and hugged him, too.

* * *

When a nurse came and pulled Joyce away, Hopper came over to Nine and squatted in front of her.

"Listen, Nine, We got Owens. I took Steve, it went exactly how you saw. You did good, kid," said Hopper.

She furrowed her brow and remembered her visions. With two fingers, she pointed to her thigh.

"Yeah… yeah, Steve nailed the son of a bitch," said Hopper.

Nine looked over to where Steve sat with his arm around Eleven, who had curled up next to him and fallen asleep. She moved to sit on his other side, pulling her knees to her chest and extending her hand. He looked at her confused, and she pointed to her thigh with two fingers once again. He slipped his hand into hers.

* * *

 _Steve returned from his flashback to discover the two men diving across the floor for the gun. In that moment, Steve knew this was the reason Nine had insisted he come. But he had to act fast._

 _He pulled the gun from the back of his pants. Safety off. Point. Squeeze._

 _Bang._

" _Agh!" Owens groaned in pain. Steve had to admit, shooting the bastard felt a lot better than punching him would have._

* * *

What was once a vision of the future was now a memory. Nine mused to herself at the idea.

"He'll go away. For a long time," said Steve.

"Forever?" asked Nine.

"I hope so," said Steve.

"Me too," said Nine.

"What happened at the crash?" asked Steve.

Nine knew that he meant 'show me', because why else would he be asking her, so she did. She showed him all of her own memories from the time she realized it was her fault that her sister went blind all the way up until she was sent back to the waiting room with animal crackers in hand and gauze taped to her inner elbow.

When she released his hand, he came back and looked at her with a pained expression. One she should have expected. One part of her wished she could have given herself.

"Can I see something? Future?" asked Nine.

"Yeah, sure," said Steve.

In the lab, her future sight was much more useful to not only her and her sister, but to Papa in his search for the bad men. But out here, in this new world, it seemed that Nine had gotten more use out of her ability to see the past.

But the past made her weak, and Nine wanted to be strong again. She wanted the answers, and maybe she could ask for them.

She placed her hand over Steve's and looked for Ten. Looked for the future.

* * *

 _Nine watched over a future where Steve stood and watched Ten._

 _She did not notice him as she stood with her back against the edge of the counter. A pot of coffee brewed behind her and she hummed a tune to herself as she tucked a piece of her now shoulder length hair behind her ear._

 _When she turned to reach for a mug out of the cabinet, Steve took the opportunity to cross the kitchen and wrap his arms around her waist from behind, burying his face in the crook of her neck._

" _Hi, Steve," she greeted in a whisper with a soft chuckle, leaning back against him._

 _He replied by pressing kisses to her shoulder and taking the cup of coffee when she handed it to him._

* * *

Nine dropped her hand and looked to Steve's face. Still concerned, still oblivious. She smiled softly at him, trying to be reassuring.

"She'll be okay," she told him.

Before he could say anything in return, she walked away to talk to Hopper. The policeman thought it would be best if he take Nine and Eleven and anyone else who wanted to go to a hotel. Nine's new piece of mind combined with the sickening sterile smell that reminded her all too much of the lab made it easy for her to agree.

* * *

They stayed in Indianapolis for a few days, and then a few days more. Nine spent a lot of time with her new friends - her sister's friends - and when Yaya invited Nine to come stay with them in Indianapolis whenever she would like, Nine knew she would take the offer.

Not immediately. She would wait a bit. She would spend time with her sister, they would both take time to heal, but then she would go.

Not forever. But she would go.

It was a feeling that grew deep inside of her. A desire. An instinct. She needed to learn. To grow. To miss her sister but to know that she was never too far away. That she was taken care of.

Her whole life they had been the twins. Nine and Ten. Ten and Nine. But then they were seperated, and now people loved Ten. They even called her by a different name. And by default, they loved Nine, too. But it was not the same. Nine was not her own person. Not yet.

She would spend time with her sister, they would heal, and then she would chase the freedom she had never experienced before for the part of herself she was now and the part of herself she was yet to know.

The sky was endless and it was calling her and she would go. Not forever. But she would go.


	18. New Year's Day

**A/N: Along with chapters one and seven, this is one of the first chapters I had ever written for this sequel and so it seems a bit crazy to me that I finally get to share it with you now. I've come back to it often to tweak and add and change things so that it ties in better, so it's another long one but I am so happy with the way it turned out. I hope you enjoy! If you have the time, I'd love to hear what you think.**

 **P.S. We're winding down. The next chapter should be the last and I'm honestly a little sad about it coming to an end.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own** _ **What A Wonderful World**_ **by Louis Armstrong.**

* * *

 _TEN /_ New Year's Day

It was only two in the morning on January 1st, 1985 when Ten had decided it was her favorite day. December 31st had been good too, she supposed, taking a moment to appreciate the way everyone gathered together in anticipation of some grand new beginning. However, New Years Eve they had all gone to a party. Big and loud and crowded. But as soon as the clock struck midnight, Tack pulled her out and Ten was eternally grateful. She hated parties.

"Have you ever been to a rooftop, Roosevelt?" Tack asked, eyes glimmering with excitement as he lead her to the stairwell. It was just the two of them, Yaya and Alisha hanging back at the celebration.

Ten shook her head 'no' and Tack grinned down at her. She had only been out of the lab and with her new group for about month and a half, and although she was a fast learner, there was still so much she did not know. Luckily for her, Tack thrived off of showing her new things.

They ascended the stairs together and when the reached the flat roof of the tall apartment complex, Ten was met with beauty unlike any she had ever known. The city was alive and thriving, even in the depths of the black night. Cars honked and sirens blared in the street below. Windows were full of light and people she had never met, all celebrating their new beginning. It was her new home, and the strangers who had taken her in as one of their own were her new family.

"Wow," was all she could say.

"Very," Tack agreed.

The two sat side by side and smoked a bowl, letting their feet dangle over the edge of the building. Tack's face glowed orange with every spark of the lighter. They looked and talked and laughed and told stories. So many stories. He had asked to see her tattoo again and she showed him. 010. He showed her all the art that inked his own skin, the images he had kept hidden under layers of dark clothing. He told her what every tattoo meant to him in excruciating detail. Some meant everything. Others meant nothing at all. Ten's brain soaked up what he was telling her like a sponge, and her heart felt full.

"Everyone says you're a prick but that's not true, is it, Tack?"

"No... Just pretending," he smirked, blowing smoke out into the cold winter night. "And that's why you're my favorite girl, Roosevelt. You see the real me. All of me!"

Ten laughed, and brushed the statement off casually. Her powers were her secret, and she figured the only reason she saw 'the real Tack' was because she watched his memories whenever she got the chance to be inconspicuous about it.

"It's a wonderful world, Roosevelt," he told her, looking out to the city. Then a realization hit him, and he snapped his head toward her, wide eyes glimmering once again. "Red roses! That's what we'll call you. Do you know that song? _I see trees of green, red roses too…_ I don't know all of the words but then it goes, _and I think to myself, what a wonderful world!"_

She did not know the song, but she laughed harder than ever before as he tried to sing a few verses for her.

"Anyways, my point is you're not a dead president. Roosevelt was good and fun while it lasted, but no. We're shortening it. You're a Rose now. A red Rose. And, dammit, it's a wonderful world. Okay, Rose?"

"Okay, Tack," she giggled, smiling so wide her cheeks hurt. She looked out to the city and appreciated it's industrial beauty while Tack continued to hum the tune next to her.

It was only two in the morning on New Year's Day, but she decided then and there that it was her favorite day. She was a red Rose, and he was a pretending Tack. He had saved her and fed her and taught her and now they were a family. This was their new beginning. And as long as they were up on that rooftop, nothing else mattered. She could have stayed up there forever.

But nothing lasts forever. And when she woke up in the hospital, that was her only memory.

The nurse explained she had been in a car accident, and that she was at a hospital in Indianapolis. The nurse asked her what year it was. In her haze she guessed 1985, and was right. The nurse asked her who the current president was. In her haze she guessed Roosevelt, and was wrong.

Later, when the nurse asked if her tattoo meant anything, she told them yes. It meant everything. They brushed off the slightly ludacris response because she had hit her head in the accident. Hard.

The nurse told Ten she would bring her aunt in.

"Aunt?"

The nurse smiled sympathetically and squeezed her hand. "Joyce Byers. She's waiting to see you."

 _Joyce Byers_. Where did she know that name? Suddenly, her whole life came back to her all at once. She remembered Nine and Papa. Tack and Yaya and Alisha. Steve and Dustin and Jane. Hopper and Joyce. Will and Lucas and Max. Nancy and Jonathan. Nine again. She remembered driving in the car and seeing the accident so briefly in Nancy's future, but nothing after that.

And then she remembered that she had been _blind_ , but looking around the hospital room, Ten realized she could see. She realized the walls were painted the most exquisite shade of beige and the knit pattern of her pink blanket was simply captivating. She admired the spots on the linoleum and awed at the colors of the bruises on her arm. She wanted to drown in the crisp white of her sheets after having lived in the black.

A single flower sat in a glass of water on the table next to her bed and it was the prettiest goddamn flower she had ever seen. It was as if she had forgotten that petals could be so radiant and that thorns could be so welcoming. It was a rose, a red rose. One somebody had watered for her, and she smiled so wide her cheeks ached because it was beautiful. So overwhelmingly beautiful. Ten had to close her eyes because it all became too much.

There was a knock at the door. The nurse entered, though Ten had not remembered her leaving, and she was beautiful. Joyce rushed in after her and she was beautiful, too. Ten found herself enveloped in one of her motherly hugs, full of warmth and worry and unconditional love. She closed her eyes and nuzzled her face into Joyce's neck and took in the smell of warm vanilla and cigarettes. "Oh, Rose, I'm so glad you're okay," Joyce told her, her voice soft and kind and familiar.

"How's everyone else?"

Joyce squeezed Ten tighter. "They're all okay, too. Everyone's a little bruised up but they're okay. Including Nine. Jane stopped Jonathan's car from spinning and then softened the blow of the other car, otherwise you and Jonathan and everyone else might not have gotten so lucky."

Ten remembered squeezing Nancy's hand, and how Eleven's words caused a slow rage to build inside of her. The future flashed in front of her so briefly then, but once it was gone she was still blind. Now, it seemed to be the other way around. She could see the world around her, but she could not see into the mind of the woman hugging her. Though Ten could not make sense of how, she smiled to herself.

Joyce pulled away from the embrace when they both heard footsteps; several people running down the hall into her room. Yaya and Alisha did not stop running until they collapsed onto her, and the three girls joined in a group hug. They smelt of wet pavement after the rain. It felt like a lifetime had passed since Ten had last seen them, but they were as radiant and beautiful as ever. Tack was next, pulling the girls off and complaining that they were taking too long. He smelt strongly of smoke and someone else's aftershave and Ten was reminded of the time she changed his future.

"They asked who the president was, but I didn't remember so I said Roosevelt," she whispered.

Tack burst out laughing and it sounded just how she had remembered. Hearty and loud and unapologetic.

"Hey," one of the nurses snapped from the doorway. "I'm sorry, but visitation is for family only. I know you're her aunt…"

"I'm her husband," an all too familiar voice lied. The voice that sounded like home. Pulling away from Tack's hug, she opened her eyes and the first thing she saw was the nurse suspiciously eyeing the source of the statement.

The next thing Ten saw was him. Steve. Her Steve. She _saw_ him, and his mouth fell open slightly, and of all the incredible things she had seen in the past five minutes he was the most beautiful of all. And he saw her, too. The real her. All of her! Ten finally understood what Tack had meant that night. Her favorite night. Steve had seen who she was and what she could do and he thought she was amazing. He had seen her for more than just her powers or the sum of her parts and thought she was incredible. He had seen her at her lowest and loved her anyways. She was inside out for him and it was beautiful. _He_ was beautiful, with his wrinkled clothes and weary eyes - perfectly disheveled.

The nurse decided not to press the issue with Steve's lie and turned to Tack, Yaya, and Alisha. "What about you three?" Yaya sighed and moved to squeeze Ten's hand. Alisha kissed her cheek. Tack pat her shoulder and told her they'd be in the waiting room. The nurse followed them out and Joyce left, too, announcing she was going to check on Jonathan.

Ten looked back to her Steve across the room, where he stood to wait his turn, but was now frozen in awe. As she marveled, she knew she had to tell him, so she did. "You're beautiful."

Steve's face spread into the grin she loved so much. "You can see?"

"Yes," she confirmed as she scooched over in her bed. Ten was high on whatever pain medications they had been pumping through her and she hurt her head and bruised her bones but could not feel the pain yet and her friends had come to check on her and Steve was there and Nine was alive and everyone was okay and she could see again. Her heart felt as full as it did on New Year's Day. She pat the spot on the bed next to her. "I need you over here."

Suddenly unstuck, Steve made the short distance over to the bed and lay down next to her, being careful of the wires she was connected to. He moved to take his hand in hers, but stopped just short of touching her. Remembering. "Are your powers…?" she shook her head no and met him the rest of the way, lacing her fingers through his. ' _Are your powers working again?_ ' he meant to ask.

"No, but that's okay… I think I just hit my head head in the right spot."

He frowned and looked pained and studied her eyes for any hint that she was joking. She wasn't. "I was so fucking worried about you. No one knew how bad it was going to be. They wouldn't tell us anything. And if Jane hadn't done anything about the other car… What if I lost you, Rose?"

"You didn't," she reminded him simply. For Ten, there was no such thing as ' _what if'._ The past was set and unchanging. She knew it better than anyone.

With her free hand, she ran her thumb over the crease of worry that lived between his eyebrows, as if she could somehow smooth it out. It worked, and the muscles of his face relaxed under her touch. Then she ran a finger over the scar above his brow before tracing the edge of his lower lip with her thumb, just like he always did with her.

When he realized she was mocking him, his lips spread into a smile that Ten could not help but mirror. "You're beautiful, too," he said and she continued to look at him and he continued to see all of her.

She leaned in then and kissed him lightly. His smile accidentally broke the kiss as Steve chuckled to himself.

"What?" Ten asked, wanting to be in on the joke.

"Listen," he told her, and she did.

She noticed for the first time a steady beeping sound filled the room like white noise. Steve kissed her again and it picked up pace, the beeping becoming audibly faster. Her brows drew together as she pulled away. "What is that?"

"It's your heart," he said, poking one of the wires stuck to her chest through the fabric of her hospital gown.

As the beeping slowed back down, she studied his sincere expression, and placed her hand over the center of his chest. "Does yours do it, too?"

He responded by leaning in to kiss her again. The beeping picked up pace and the steady thump of Steve's heart in the palm of her hand sped up with it.

* * *

After a few days of tests and scans then more tests and more scans, Ten was finally released. Jonathan had been discharged the day prior, but stayed to keep Steve company while Ten was with the doctors. They found her in perfect health, just like her Hawkins Lab medical file repeatedly stated, and once she signed all the paperwork she would be good to go. How she got her sight back remained a mystery. The brain scans showed no damage past a mild concussion, so Ten just considered herself lucky. Extraordinarily lucky.

Steve and Ten walked hand in hand out to the waiting room once she was allowed to leave. She noticed Jonathan and Nancy standing together first, and then an Tack, Yaya, and Alisha sprawled out in the chairs, and then Nine. Someone brought her Nine. Beautiful, beautiful Nine, with a shaved head and normal clothes.

She stood and Ten ran to her, taking her face in her hands, the one she had not seen since the night the monsters took her. They greeted each other silently as they tried to memorize the familiarity of each other's eyes. Nine's nose bled as she pushed Ten's visions away.

"This is fuckin' wild," Ten heard Tack say, followed by a light smack - most likely Yaya - and an "Ow!"

But Ten was just so happy to see the face in front of her. The face she knew better than anyone else's, and not just because it was a duplicate of her own. All dark lashes and smooth skin and flushed lips. Finally the first to notice, Ten moved to push Nine's lower lip out from between her teeth and Nine returned the favor. To each other, they both looked so familiar, yet so different. But their appearances hadn't changed drastically. They had.

Ten took her time hugging each of her friends. First Nine, then Alisha, Yaya, and her newest friend, Nancy. Then, her 'cousin' Jonathan, and finally Tack. "Do you wanna go to the rooftop?" she whispered in his ear. He smiled a sly grin before leading her away and motioning for everyone to follow.

Hand in hand, Tack and Ten lead the way to the rooftop of the hospital together, ignoring any questions or complaints from the others that followed. Together, the group of eight young adults in puffy winter jackets ascended the staircase in a large cluster. Ten felt happy. Ridiculously happy.

When they reached the top, and Ten was met with the greatest sight she had ever seen. The sun was about to set and the cloudy sky was the color of periwinkle, like the crayon, fading into a pale orange, like kitchen soap, just before it disappeared behind the skyscrapers. But when she turned around, it was a vibrant mess of color - hues of pinks and purples and yellows - like a giant bruise in the sky. She found herself spinning in circles trying to soak in as much of it as possible, but had to stop to close her eyes. There was as dull ache behind where she had hit her head and her ribs hurt if she moved the wrong way, but cool air filled her lungs and Ten had never felt more alive. The city was not as thriving as it was at two in the morning on New Year's Day, but still she felt the strong sense of home.

But then Tack rested an elbow on her shoulder and she looked around to her friends and saw the same joy and wonder in their eyes as they, too, took in the city sunset. She realized then that it was not the view that made her feel like home, it was the people she was with. The ones she loved best in this world. It was Tack and Yaya and Alisha who had given her a name and taught her family. It was Steve who had given her shelter and safety and taught her love. It was Nancy and Jonathan, her new friends who were eager to help and understand. It was Nine, her other half and the strongest person she would ever know. It was even the kids in the party, and she wished they could be there, too, because Dustin and Will and Lucas and Mike and Max and Jane were her home, too. Ten was overwhelmed by the amount of love she had to give, and even more so by the amount of love she had received.

She looked to Tack and he smiled at her like he knew. Ten supposed he saw all of her, too.

"Why are you crying?" Steve asked taking her face in his hands. The question made her notice her own wet cheeks for the first time.

"Just happy," she told him simply, because it was the only answer she had.

"It's a good life," he agreed in complete understanding.

Tack began humming the song she was named after. _What a Wonderful World._

And even though her ribs already felt tough, she found herself laughing little kid, because they were right. It was cheesy and ridiculous and beautiful and they were right.

'The Little Prince' had warned her once that, " _The most beautiful things cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart."_ Ten in that moment, Ten suddenly understood what that had meant, too.

She looked to Nine, her Nine, where she stood with a gaping mouth, alive and appreciating the world around her for the very first time. She looked to her Jonathan and Nancy, young and in love and wishing they had brought their cameras. She looked to her Tack and her Yaya and her Alisha, faces glowing in the sunset, too. Finally, she looked to Steve, her Steve, who looked down at her as if she were the view everyone should be gawking at. Together - with their red noses and big coats and breaths visible against the December air - they were all beautiful. Ten felt it in her beeping heart. She knew it deep in her bruised bones.

As long as they were on the rooftop, nothing else mattered. Ten would have given anything to stay up there forever with the family that she had built. The family that was hers. Just the eight of them; Steve and Tack and Yaya and Alisha and Nancy and Jonathan and Nine and Ten.

"Today is my new favorite day," she decided aloud because it was true, and even though her entire body still ached she doubted anything could ever top how lovely she felt in that moment. Everyone around nodded in sincere understanding. They saw her, and she saw them, too.


	19. 1986

_STEVE_ / 1986

Hopper and Joyce both suggested Rose and Nine and Jane all stay in Indianapolis for a few more days just to play it safe. Steve agreed, and stayed with them, even more overprotective of Rose now that he had almost lost her.

Hop, just as concerned about Jane, ordered them not to leave the hotel room. Rose frowned about it initially, wanting to show Steve all of the palaces she used to hang out, but she was so physically and mentally drained that it ended up never being a problem.

She had not slept well in the hospital, claiming it smelt too much like the lab for her comfort. But the hotel smelt like stale cigarettes and citrus air freshener, so Rose took the opportunity to nap constantly. Sometimes it was in the bed, sometimes it was curled up in the armchair, and other times Tack would lay with her on the floor.

"Do you think she's okay?" Steve asked her friends after she had drifted off against him.

"Are you kidding?" asked Yaya. "They have her on narcotics and her only responsibility is to sleep all day and occasionally get up to eat something."

"Yeah, I'd go as far to say she's living in the lap of luxury, my friend. I'm a little jealous," added Tack.

* * *

After a few days, they drove back to Hawkins; Steve and Rose and Nine and even Tack, who had missed Rose and had grown sick of spending time alone while Yaya and Alisha worked their 'grown up' jobs bartending.

When they got back to the house, Tack let himself in, followed by Nine. Rose made her way up the front steps next to Steve, but stopped short in the doorway.

"You okay?" Steve asked.

Rose did not respond, letting her eyes wander around the front room while her brows gradually drew further and further together. Just before he could ask her again, she closed her eyes and used her hand and the wall to lead herself to the kitchen.

Her fingers roamed the counters and cupboards, grazing over the cups that had found a new home on the bottom shelf and knocking over Lucas' old supercom in the corner and finding the small plant she kept in the windowsill above the sink (miraculously still alive after no one had been around to water it for nearly a week). Finally, she opened her eyes and looked around until her gaze landed on Steve.

"It all feels the same," she told him. He nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It doesn't look it, though… It doesn't look how I remembered."

"Is that good or bad?" Steve challenged.

Her eyes curiously wandered the house around her once more. Just as Steve thought she had decided not to answer, she did, meeting his eyes again and giving him a half smile. "I'm not sure."

* * *

They had made it back just in time for June Fletcher's funeral, a concept neither Nine nor Rose fully grasped. There was quite the turn out. It seemed as if the entire populations of Hawkins and Ameswood showed, though most had probably never actually known her. Hell, Steve and Rose and Tack had never actually known her. But they went anyways.

When the service was over, Steve noticed Hopper, Jonathan, and Nancy all talking to a boy he just barely recognized from the halls of Hawkins High. He was tall with an average build, though he slouched as if he wished he was not. His skin was tan and freckled, even in the dead of winter, and his unkempt hair was a dark blond. He looked in Steve's direction when Hopper pointed.

The group of four made their way over to Steve, Tack, Rose, and Nine. After giving Steve a slight nod - acknowledging that he recognized him, too - the unidentified boy's tired green eyes bounced back and forth between the faces of the twins.

"Uh, Nine," Jonathan started. "This is Alex... Alex, this is Nine."

Nine looked to her sister, and they communicated briefly with nothing but glances and subtle gestures, which was even more unsettling for Steve to watch than what he had witnessed just an hour before they left for Illinois.

After the seemingly telepathic conversation was over, Nine dropped the grip she had been holding on her sister's sleeve, and Rose stepped back along with Steve and Tack. "Alex?" she asked in a quiet voice. Though her face showed no signs of it, the look behind her deep blue eyes gave her away; She was breaking inside.

"Yeah," said Alex, his own voice thick with pained exhaustion.

Her brows pulled together and her eyes narrowed as she studied his face. "You look like her," she decided, echoing the sentence she had heard a thousand times since reuniting with her twin.

Alex glaced quickly to Rose, who was still hovering even after stepping back. " _You_ look like _her_."

"Yes. Sisters," Nine agreed, looking to her twin briefly before turning back to Alex. She spoke slowly, carefully stringing thoughts and feelings together as best as she could. "But June almost felt like a sister, too. Brave."

Alex nodded slowly, trying to blink back tears and bite down emotions. After a drawn out beat, he closed the distance between them and pulled her into an awkward hug. But to everyone's surprise, Nine hugged him back. Just barely, but it was a stark contrast to just standing there with limp arms.

"Chief Hopper told me everything that happened," Alex told her. "You're brave, too."

And at that, every barrier Nine had built up, every wall or facade, every face of steel armor or sculpted stone, all cracked and crumbled and demolished. It was as if she had been a ticking time bomb that finally broke down in the arms of a stranger. Or maybe in her mind, Alex really was not a stranger at all. She began crying for June and for Alex. For Brenner and Owens. For her twin sister and herself. For all that this life had handed them.

"Sorry," she murmured into his shirt as he tightened his grip around her shoulders. No one knew what she was sorry for, whether it was for June or for crying or for both, and no one asked.

Alex glanced to Rose. Tears stained his cheeks, too. But it was Rose's turn to be the strong one. She put on Nine's stone mask, but underneath it her heart aching for her sister. Steve could tell by the way she locked her jaw and grasped Steve's hand so tightly that he nearly lost feeling in his fingers.

* * *

When the moment was over and Nine steadied her emotions, Hopper invited everyone - Alex, Nine, Rose, Steve, Nancy, even Tack - over to his cabin to look the files he had collected from Owens' basement. Or at least the ones that had not been submitted to evidence.

But Rose did not want to go. She did not want to know what Owens or Hawkins Lab had to say about her, so she went back to the house with Tack, who was still blissfully unaware as to the half of it.

The rest of them met up at Hop's cabin, splitting off into teams. Jonathan and Alex went through June's files and while Joyce went through Will's and Hopper and Jane went through the latter's. Nancy took Nine's and Steve took Rose's and they ended up working with each other because of all the overlap. Nine floated around, asking and answering questions.

Steve was busy reading about a dream Rose had when she was twelve - in it she fell from a great height but Nine was the one who got injured from it - and what the imagery might have meant when he was interrupted by Nancy.

"Steve," she called. "Look at this."

She was holding a picture in her hand. In it, two identical girls with buzzcuts, bare feet, and hospital gowns stood up straight against a wall that marked their height. They were young, maybe Holly Wheeler's age. The one on the right's face would have been perfectly expressionless if not for the small smirk of her full lips as she looked into the camera. The one on the left chewed her lower lip and watched her twin out of the corner of her eye.

"That one's Rose," Steve said confidently, pointing to the girl on the left.

"How can you can tell?" Nancy asked, narrowing her eyes at the image. "Or are you just guessing?"

Steve took the picture and flipped it over. Sure enough, ' _03/03/1971: 010 (left) and 009 (right)'_ was written across the back.

"Told you," he boasted, flipping the picture back over to examine it - or more specifically six-year-old Rose - further.

"It's sweet how much you care about her," Nancy told him with a distantly familiar sincerity in her voice.

But Steve really did not want to have this conversation with her, so he reached over and dug through one of the stacks of files until he found a folder with his name on it next to the word 'manipulation'. He plopped it in her lap in hopes it would shut her up even though Steve had already determined that all of the files in front of them were - in the spirit of spending time with Nancy Wheeler - bullshit.

Steve had confirmed that Owens was full of shit, or at the very least mostly wrong, the moment he saw Rose again in the hospital. He saw her and the stitches above her eyebrow that was sure to leave a scar - the placement a mirror image of Steve's own - and the purple bruise across her cheekbone reminiscent of the one she had received night they met, and Steve just knew. And then she had looked at him. She had _looked_ at him with those damn eyes and smirked as if she knew, too.

It's entirely possible that his initial attraction to her had been something else entirely out of either of their control, but that was all it was. An initial attraction. A first impression, a strange pull, an instant sense of trust. But even then an initial attraction had nothing to do with the forever Steve already knew he wanted to spend with Rose.

Her powers had been pulled away, and her ability to 'manipulate' went along with it, but still Steve felt the same. He loved her. More than anything, he loved her. Because she was soft and warm and caring. She was curious and bright and honest. She was adorable and little badass and incredible. Because her laughter tasted sweet and her fingers fit between his like pieces of a puzzle and her smile could save his life probably. Because she chose to love him. And he chose to love her, too. Maybe, just maybe, the first day it was out of his hands, but it had been is decision every day since. Because she was his, completely. And he was hers, entirely. Everything else was details, and everything Owens thought he knew about them was bullshit.

Nancy read through the file, front to back, and told him exactly that. "You know this is all bullshit, right?"

For the first time, he was glad to hear the word come out of her mouth. And for the first time since the night she spat the term over and over, they genuinely smiled at each other.

* * *

Not too long after, the world was preparing for 1986. Everyone ended up at Steve and Rose's house on New Year's Eve, even though the first thing they had ever determined about each other was that neither of them liked parties. Alisha and Yaya had come down from Indianapolis, and Nancy and Jonathan came over and brought Alex. The little shitheads showed up, too, and Steve found it interesting to watch the connections everyone made.

Yaya and Nine looked like they had been best friends their entire lives, and Max seemed to fit right in. Jane was excited to see Nancy and Nancy was excited to see Alisha, who kept glancing in the direction of Alex, who stood in a corner with Jonathan the whole time. Will was mesmerised by the art he saw when Tack rolled up his sleeves, and was eager to show the older boy his sketchbook.

But some things remained the same. Lucas kept an eye on Max and Mike glued himself to Jane and Dustin hovered in the general vicinity of Rose, who hovered in the general vicinity of Nine.

When midnight neared, Steve found Rose sitting on kitchen the counter as she talked to Dustin standing in front of her.

"Dustin!" one of the kids called from the living room, and he pat Rose on the knee before leaving her alone in the kitchen.

Rose's small smile faltered as he walked away, just as it had when Yaya had left her the same way at the party in Indianapolis.

Steve, needing to rectify this, made his way over and hopped up on the counter next to her. When she smiled at him, but it did not reach her eyes.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"I will be," she replied simply. Steve looked at her until she explained further. She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. "Nine wants to go back to Indy with Tack, Yaya, and Alisha.

"What? Why?"

Rose shrugged. "Just a feeling she has. And I get it, I really do. I had an adventure and she needs her own and it's not supposed to be forever… but it just makes me sad."

Steve did not know what to say, so he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer.

"She said I can take my powers back if I want them, but I don't think I do," she continued.

"No?" he asked, hating that Owens' words haunted his thoughts.

" _I don't think she wants her abilities back as much as Nine wants to keep them,"_ he had said.

"No," she said, sitting up. "Not yet, at least. I'm dreaming again, though, so maybe I pulled them back just enough to see again. Either that, or I really did hit my head in the right spot… I guess it really doesn't matter. Either way, it's easier for me without them."

"It's easier?" Steve asked. She nodded. "Name one thing you couldn't do before that you can do now."

"I can kiss you without bleeding on your face," she replied immediately. "I don't have to hide some huge secret anymore, I can stop flinching all the time, I don't have to watch -"

"Okay, fair enough. Let Nine have them then," Steve said, standing corrected. He leaned his shoulder into hers playfully before adding, "For now."

She looked up at him and he smirked down at her as they let a comfortable silence wash over them for just a moment. Placing her hand over his chest again, she sat and felt his heart.

A smile spread over her lips as she felt it beat. Laughter erupted from elsewhere in the house, but the two were already in their own little world together.

He leaned in to kiss her then, and her smile widened, making it difficult. "You know, if you don't stop smiling then you won't be able to kiss me without bleeding on my face."

"I never said I wanted to, just that I can," she jabbed, causing Steve to raise an eyebrow at the statement. "Don't look at me like that, you're the one who's making me do it."

" _I'm_ making you smile?" Steve asked as he grinned, too. "I didn't do anything."

"I know," she said. And then softly, as if it were a secret, she added, "I'm just in love with you."

Rose managed to kiss him then without grinning. And he kissed her, over and over and over, knowing that he would never get enough of her. He was lucky, so damn lucky, to love and be loved in return. To choose and be chosen in return.

New years would come and people would go, if only to come back again, but Steve and Rose would always have this. He was certain of it.

When she pulled away, leaning her forehead against his and closing her eyes, Steve could only imagine what his heart must have felt like under her palm as it soared and skipped and beat for her. Over and over and over again.

* * *

 _She dreamt she was sitting at trunk of an old weeping willow tree, hidden under its green canopy. A book sat open in her lap, though she could not decipher the words on the page. Suddenly, she heard laughter above her, and looked up to find two young children climbing around in the branches. Though she was unable to see their faces, she sensed they were familiar to her. Feeling somehow responsible for the two, she climbed up after them but they were faster and more nimble._

 _Eventually, she caught up with them. One of the children turned to look at her; a young boy with gleaming hazel eyes and a button nose. The ghost of a half smirk flickered across his lips._

" _What's your name?" she asked him, but he just turned and tapped the other child on the shoulder._

 _The second boy turned to face her; a twin identical to the first, but with one eyebrow cocked and his lower lip between his teeth. He opened his hands clasped hands and presented her with a baby dove. She looked back to the first boy and he opened his fist to present her with a shimmering stone._

 _She looked between her two gifts, then the distantly familiar faces of the two boys. They each smiled wide and she felt an overwhelming sense of trust. She knew they had no ill intentions. '_ Everything's exactly as it should be _,' their autumn eyes assured her._

 _And they were right. She knew it in her heart. She felt it in her bones._

* * *

 **A/N: So this is it. This is where I leave you. For now, at least. I do have more stories planned, but nothing with Nine & Ten - but then again, I can't see the future! But right now it is goodbye, and it is bittersweet.**

 **There are no words to describe just how grateful I am for all of you that have made it this far with me. '1985' was my first fanfiction and going into it I thought it was going to be a bust. But it wasn't. And I am left absolutely speechless by all of the incredible love and support both of my stories have gotten, all from** _ **you**_ **! My beautiful, beautiful readers! I would not have made it this far without you and am a better writer because you exist, and that means the absolute world to me.**

 **I would thank you endlessly, but it would never be enough. You make my heart feel full.**

 **Last but not least, I hope you enjoyed this little adventure with me. Any comments, questions, or constructive criticisms are more than welcome!**

 **Also, stay rad.**

 **xx starsandrockets**


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